WGGB General Secretary Ellie Peers and Treasurer Gail Renard attended the Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) in Berlin from 14-16 November 2025.
It was preceded by European Screenwriters Day, hosted by the FSE and the German Screenwriters’ Association, on 13 November, where Ellie Peers (pictured left) spoke on a panel on AI and copyright, as well as contributing to sessions on freedom of expression and combating the far right.
WGGB Treasurer Gail Renard was re-elected to the board of the FSE.
Over 100 participants, authors and associations’ representatives from around 20 nations spent European Screenwriters Day discussing topics including the threat to civil liberties, the instability of democratic structures and the challenges posed by artificial intelligence for copyright law.
The FSE also unanimously adopted a new resolution strengthening member guilds’ collective commitment to defending freedom of artistic expression across Europe.
The resolution invites each member guild to monitor and report developments that may threaten writers’ freedom of expression, from individual incidents of pressure or censorship to political discourse, media narratives, or controversial appointments in cultural institutions.
By gathering these at the European level, the FSE will build a shared overview of the challenges facing screenwriters, and explore with partners the creation of a dedicated European observatory, ensuring that existing European initiatives aimed at monitoring and preventing threats to artistic freedom properly take into account the specific situation of screenwriters.
A full public statement will follow once the final version of FSE’s new report, Right to write: screenwriters and the growing threats to freedom of artistic expression in Europe, is published in the coming weeks.