Vincze Loránt: Time to say goodbye to digital borders

Alongside language rights, education in the mother tongue and culture, minority media are essential to the preservation of the ethnic and linguistic identity – stated FUEN President Vincze Loránt at the first European conference devoted to minority and local media that took place in Novi Sad last week, reminding participants about the importance of the partnership the FUEN has with the European Association of Daily Newspapers in Minority and Regional Languages, MIDAS.

Vincze Loránt explained: changing reader habits and the economic crises presented a challenge to all media, and minority media especially, as they have to survive on a much smaller market. In the opinion of the president of the FUEN minority media cannot survive without external support, and thus, states, regions and the EU ought to provide subsidies for these media, as they are key to the preservation of the identity of people belonging to a national or linguistic minority.

The FUEN President presented the Minority SafePack Citizen’s Initiative emphasising the parts of it regarding media saying: “Every European citizen should be granted access to culture and entertainment in their own language. Time has come to say no to geo-blocking.  We call upon the EU to establish a unitary European copyright system that will lead to the abolishment of licensing barriers within the Union. We propose an amendment to the existing framework in order to ensure that there will be freedom of service and freedom of reception of audio-visual content in the regions where minorities live”.