arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

#1 SHORT HISTORY
Has everybody knows (isn't it?) Indymedia has been created for the big event of mobilization against the WTO, in December '99, in Seattle. Then that phenomenon have spred trough US and world wide. And soon in Europe too. The first IMC of Europe poped out in UK, for the Mayday 2000. In Belgium, Indymedia is born in June, for the UNICE summit (Europe Business Summit). On the same month another center in created in Italy, for the OSCE summit, in Bologna. On September 2000, the whole world is watching Prague where the summit between the IMF and the World Bank is taking place. A huge work is done there, and plenty of activists got in touch for the first time with Indymedia. It's soon really effective and new centers are appearing trough Europe: in December: Finland, Januari: Switzerland, March: Germany, April: Sweden. Center has also been created in Russia, Barcelona, France and an IMC is dedicated to climate issues. Netherlands Indymedia is about to be created, groups are now working to build up IMC's in several countries, including East-Europe countries

#2 LET'S GET TOGETHER!
All those centers have been set up and have been developed with a quite insulated way. So a gathering was needed and asked by many to get more in touch, share experiences, discuss several issues and increase collaboration. The discussion was launched for several months, thanks to a mailing list. Finally it as been decided, central point, beginning of June, before the beginning of the "summer season" of summits and events of this summer.

#3 WAT EEN WEEK-END! (Dutch for 'What a w-e!')
The agenda was kinda heavy. About 50 persons came from Belgium, Netherlands, UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Sweden and even Mali. They've been welcomed and hosted by media-activiste of Belgium. During 2 long days (10am>11pm) discussions took place one after the others, during general gathering, workshops and informal discussions. Thanks to a reader, initiated by some German, everybody could know more about history and work of the several IMC's. several issues have been discussed, during main gathering or workshops, including open-publishing policy, process, tech issues (code and servers), proposal of an 'europe.indymedia.org', legal issues and repression, translation, distribution, archive, networking and the agenda of the next importants events in Europe.

#4 CONCLUSIONS?
This first meeting was first of all to get more in touch. But it showed up that despite some differences in their appraoches, the IMC's of Europe agreed on most of the issues discussed and have similar workstyles. All those exchanges also have launched an enthousiastic dynamic, offering new prospectives of projects and collaborations. Reports of the differents discussions will be shared and spread around next days, and a statement should came up after having been discussed trough the mailing list in the IMC's of Europe. the next gathering would probably occure in December, in Belgium or in the Netherlands.

#5 EXHAUSTED AND HAPPY...
Even if the main activity of the week-end was to gather, it also have been the time for lot of fun, human warmth, humor and night discovery of the (famous) Belgian beers... Still on Monday, the media-activists whom have survive all this were hanging at Regards Croisés (which is hosting Belgium Indymedia), to continue to talk and also to meet again thoses who had already left...on the indymedia's IRC! (chat channel)

LINK = pictures