Jose-Maria Siles

José-María Siles  born 1 November 1951 in Almería is a Spanish journalist, director of aNews, the correspondent agency; a documentary film producer and an expert on international relations. He was a foreign correspondent in Paris, Bonn, Rabat, Berlin, New York and Brussels.

He worked in Radio France Internationale in Paris and for the National Television of Spain in Germany, where he witnessed the last years of the cold war and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

He was a war correspondent during the siege of Sarajevo and the reunification of the city after the Dayton Agreement and he covered the rise of Islamic extremism in the Maghreb countries and the beginning of the decolonization process in the West Sahara as TVE Rabat correspondent.

In 1994 he served as director of Canal Sur Televisión, the Public Broadcaster of Andalusia. After this experience in Seville, he was TVE US Bureau Chief in New York and Washington. As European Affairs correspondent in Brussels he informed about the arrival of the euro, the enlargement of the Union and the new peacemaker and peace builder role of NATO under the umbrella of the United Nations.

José-María Siles is an European Commission external speaker.

• José-María Siles (1951) is a Spanish journalist, expert on European and international affairs. He has been a foreign correspondent in Paris, Bonn, Rabat, Berlin, New York and Brussels.

• Among others assignments around the world, José-María Siles covered the last Lebanon war with Israel, the people uprisings in Haiti and the arrival of democracy to Congo-Kinshasa.

• He is now director of an Independent Information Network based in Brussels, External Speaker of the European Commission and a member of Team Europe, independent network of experts on European affairs.

• As a university student, he produced documentary films suffering censorship under the Franco's rule before receiving a postgraduate Master's degree in Communication Sciences and Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

• His experience as an international journalist began working for the News Desk of 'Radio France Internationale' and as a correspondent in Paris for Spanish newspapers.

• The National Television of Spain, TVE, sent him as Bureau Chief to Germany in 1986 where he covered the last years of the cold war in a still divided country. In the night of November, 9 1989, he was one of the first journalists reporting live on the fall of the Berlin Wall from the Checkpoint Charlie on both sides of the wall.

• After the Germany reunification, he opened a new TVE office in Rabat covering the rise of Islamic extremism in North Africa and the beginning of the decolonization process in the West Sahara.

• A as a war correspondent he witnessed since 1992 the dramatic siege of Sarajevo and the reunification of the city after the Dayton Agreement. Later on he followed the Slobodan Miloševic' trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

• Director of 'Canal Sur Televisión', the Public Broadcaster of Andalusia, in 1994, before he served two years as TVE US correspondent based in New York and Washington.

• As European Affairs correspondent he covered the implementation of the European single currency, the enlargement of the Union and the NATO new military operations.

Summary:

•    Spanish journalist and communicator with more than 20 year experience as a foreign correspondent

•    Involved in the building of a news and documentary network of TV broadcasters in Europe

•    European Commission External Speaker

•    Expert in Communication issues

•    Teacher of Masters in News Production & Communication

•    Moderator of debates

•    Foreign correspondent for the National TV of Spain in Europe, Africa and America

•    TVE Bureau chief in Bonn, Rabat, Berlin, New York, Washington DC and Brussels