Today, 15 September 2022, MEP Irena Joveva sent an open letter to the CEOs of digital platforms Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Netflix, urging them to make their services and content available in Slovene. European citizens deserve the right to use content in their mother tongue, regardless of the prevalence of a particular language, she wrote.
In her letter, she expressed her concern and disappointment with the situation, explaining that such practices are discriminatory and that multilingualism, both in the European Union and more broadly, is a value of which we can be proud and which should be promoted.
Special attention should be paid to less-spoken languages, highlighted Joveva in her letter, referring to the provisions of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the EU Treaty and Directive 2010/13/EU (Audiovisual Media Services Directive).
She said the content offered by these companies also plays an important role in the education, socialisation and upbringing of children who are not yet proficient in foreign languages. The content is also less accessible to all those who do not understand foreign languages.
The European Union recognises the existence of a multilingual digital single market where everyone deserves equal treatment with equal accessibility regardless of their location and start of provision of a digital service, therefore Joveva called on the CEOs of these companies to consider making all official EU languages equally accessible on online streaming media platforms.
The MEP also points out that although Slovenian legislation, specifically Article 20(2) of the Public Use of the Slovene Language Act, should be sufficient, problems arise due to the fact that the said digital platforms are not registered in Slovenia. Therefore, in her opinion, the Audiovisual Media Services Directive should be urgently transposed into national legislation, which would enable the introduction of precise requirements for such translations and to remedy the existing shortcomings.
“Let me remind you that we, as members of the European Parliament, like to say that we are united in diversity, and I firmly believe that this is something that we should very much promote, something that every European should fight for and, above all, something that every company operating in the single European market should respect. It is not so much a question of whether or not there is a legal basis requiring the use all European languages. It is about the right of each and every individual, and about the fact that it is our diversity and all of the beautiful European languages that shape our European mosaic. Let us give all Europeans the dignity and respect they deserve – in their mother tongue.”
The MEP sent the letter to the CEOs of the companies in question in Slovene. You can read it in full below:
Letter regarding the (non-)use of the Slovene language on your digital platforms in Slovenia (available only in Slovenian language)
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