The General Assembly and Congress Days of the EWC-FAEE AISBL took place in Oslo from 23rd to 25th of May 2025. 70 delegates from 25 countries and 36 organisations elected a new EWC Board and Grażyna Plebanek as new President.

In Oslo we experienced three days of inspiring, vivid, empowering talks, discussions, exchange and connecting. The Congress days started with the Welcome Reception, Friday 23rd May, followed by a vivid Burning Issues Forum, Saturday 24th May, about the most crucial threats on authorship and society and how they impact our future (Gen AI & growing political threats). On Sunday 25th May, the AGM elected the new board for the term 2025-2027.

Perfectly orchestrated and organised thanks to EWC’s Secretary General Nicole Pfister Fetz and EWC’s Coordinator Zsuzsánna Doczy who exchanged and coordinated the Congress Days with great appreciated support by our Norwegian hosts: Den Norske Forfatterforeningen, Forfatterforbundet, Norwegian Writers for Children (NBU),   NFFO Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association.

The AGM days in Oslo were co-sponsored by Kopinor.

To All: Tusen Takk!

The Elected Board for the term 2025-2027:

• • Grażyna Plebanek: President
  • Maïa Bensimon: First Vice President (re-elected, Vice President 2021-2025)
  • Monika Pfundmeier: Second Vice President (re-elected, Board Member 2023-2025)
  • Members of the Board: Eystein Hanssen (re-elected, Board Member since 2021, Norway), Claus Ankersen (Denmark), Conor Kostick (Ireland) and Sebastiá Portell (Spain).

Commissioner for Political Affairs: Nina George (re-elected by the new Board)

The Elections were conducted by the EWC’s Election Committee 2025: Ferenc Czinki (President of Szépírók Társasága, Society of Hungarian Authors) and Nathalie Orloff (SNAC, France).

For the term 2023 – 2025 our THANKS go to Miguel Ángel Serrano (Board Member 2021-2023, President 2023-2025, Spain) and to the outgoing Members of the Board: Alena Makouskaya (Belarus), Paula Havaste (Finland) and Arno Jundze (Latvia).

Welcome Reception, 23rd May

Opening the Congress Days in Oslos the delegates attended the Welcome Reception at the premises of the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association (NFFO), greeted by Marte Blikstad-Balas, President NFFO and Miguel Ángel Serrano, outgoing President of the EWC.

 

Burning Issues Forum, 24th May

For our most important exchange and discussions the National Library of Norway opened its doors, floors and the stage for us. In our Burning Issues Forum we discussed and exchanged on Artificial Intelligence and its political influence. Several experts on ethics, economy and intellectual property from all over Europe participated in the various debates that took place:

• The EU AI Act – and now? An introduction in EWC’ Burning Issues on AI by Nina George
• Presentation: The Mímir project – a Norwegian initiative
• Discussion: In License we trust? Practice, challenges, chances and risks
• The work for authors in Europe under the threat of AI
• Input: Learning to read authoritarian signals
• Discussion: Constraints and censorship: how politics and big tech erode writers’ rights 

With the closing remarks, Monika Pfundmeier, pointed out that

We are Humans, with hearts, brains, dreams, love. We have the ability to use our brains in reflecting and criticizing. Let’s not give in, but equip ourselves to what’s already here, to what’s coming, by being human and stand solidly with humans. And let’s remind others to do so. Nothing will happen overnight, but if you quit, if we quit it will not happen at all.

Annual General Meeting , 25th May

On 25th May, within the AGM together as European writers we accomplished in a working session a resolution about AI (to the full text of the resolution) The delegates elected a new board for the 2025 to 2027 term of office with:

Grażyna Plebanek (Poland, President), Maïa Bensimon (France, 1st Vice President), Monika Pfundmeier (Germany, 2nd Vice President), Claus Ankersen (Denmark, Board Member), Eystein Hanssen (Norway, Board Member), Conor Kostick (Ireland, Board Member) and Sebastiá Portell (Spain, Board Member).
Nina George (Honorary President of the EWC) was reappointed by the Board as Political Commissioner.

We thank her for her dedicated and highly appreciated work 2023-2025 and her expertise and also EWC’s backbone Nicole Pfister Fetz (Secretary General, Switzerland) and Zsuzsánna Doczy (Coordinator, Belgium), and we‘re looking forward to work with this great team uniting and valuing already parts Europe’s beautiful diversity facing the coming storms.

The Assembly elected Miguel Ángel Serrano as President of Honor. The EWC now has two honorary Presidents, together with Nina George.

The EWC welcomes three new members, ratified by the Assembly:

– Federation of Italian Authors / Federazione Unitaria Italiana Scritorri, FUIS, Italy
– The Norwegian Association of Literary Translators / Norsk Oversetterforening (NO), Norway
– Slovak Writers’ Association/ Asociácia spisovateľov Slovenska, ASOS, Slovakia

The EWC consists now of 53 organisations from 34 countries in the EU, EEA and non-EU area, including Iceland, Norway, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, representing over 250.000 writers of all genres, and is the largest federation worldwide, solely representing writers from the book sector.