The European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) temporarily suspended the Russian TASS news agency at its extraordinary assembly in Sarajevo on Friday.

Clemens Pig, President of EANA and CEO of the Austrian Press Agency (APA) said that the decision on the suspension was adopted “by a convincing majority.”

“A large majority decided that we suspend TASS,” Pig said, adding that the decision was passed with agreement from agencies “from a wide range of countries, from the north to south of Europe,” considering the “circumstances that Ukraine is experiencing.”

EANA expressed full support to the Ukrainian Ukrinform agency and announced that it would help the agency so it can continue operating in difficult circumstances of the war.

“EANA suspended TASS immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine due to the influence Russia’s authorities have on the agency’s reporting,” Croatian state agency Hina reported, without clarifying.

EANA secretary-general, Alexandru Ion Giboi, said the conditions to admit TASS back into the alliance will be “extremely sharp.”

Ukrinform’s Director Oleksandr Harchenko, who also attended the assembly in Sarajevo, thanked EANA for its support. EANA has 32 members who are mostly public or state news agencies, including Croatia’s Hina, the German DPA news agency and France’s AFP.

This year’s EANA annual assembly was hosted by FENA, the news agency of the Federation entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the main topic discussed was the need to check facts “in times of misinformation.”

Pig underscored the power of social media and warned of the dangers it had due to unverified information during the pandemic and of the necessity to have timely access to verified facts.

He said that numerous agencies have already established special fact checking teams while the aim is for all agencies to be networked through mechanisms like that which will prevent misinformation campaigns. He also underscored the need for cooperation with regard to technology in order to be able to respond to challenges in the media while ensuring complete freedom of media reporting.