Ansa celebrates 80 years of activity at the European Parliament

From the correspondent in Strasbourg – Ansa, Italy’s historic news agency, celebrates its 80th year of activity in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. For the event, held in the “Emilio Colombo” space, a selection of the most influential photos from the last 80 years was displayed, all from the Ansa archive. Among the images, which include various fields such as sport with Maradona, Bolt, the World Cup won by Italy in 2006, there were a large number of photos with a strong historical and social significance, such as those depicting the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the moon landing in ’69, but also more recent images such as the one of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at the beginning of the year, or the shot depicting the delivery of humanitarian aid inside the Gaza Strip.

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, spoke on the occasion, recalling the importance of freedom of the press and how it remains a cardinal principle of Europe and stating that the mission of Ansa “has never been as important as it is today, it helps us to tell the story of Europe, its past, its present, its future.”

Metsola then took the opportunity to recount a personal memory, evoked by the historical photographs captured by the press agency: “[…] I remember seeing the (Berlin) Wall coming down on a small TV screen with a grainy image, and at that moment, inside my grandparents’ house, we really believed that history had turned a corner.

The MD of Ansa, Stefano De Alessandri, also spoke about the importance of the archive, a small selection of which was on display, and how it contains more than twenty million photographs, which during its activity have been part of the (approximately) one million news items that Ansa publishes each year.

Finally, Francesca Passamonti, Head of European Affairs at Intesa Sanpaolo, intervened, emphasising the exceptional work to preserve democracy and combat fake news and disinformation that Ansa carries out today, and announcing the digitalisation of 800,000 images from the archive over the next four years, to preserve a cultural treasure built up over years of journalistic work. Action fully financed by the Intesa bank.

The “Ansa80” event concluded with messages of greetings sent by Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli and European Commission Vice-President Raffaele Fitto.