News from ECMI InfoChannel

Please note that following the partial lockdown measures adopted by the German authorities and the recommendation to work remotely, the ECMI Headquarters will be closed to external guests for the duration of the lockdown.

The majority of the employees will work remotely including the Secretariat.

You can reach us at info@ecmi.de or contact the employees directly via email.

The present text summarises the findings of the series "Minority language media and the COVID-19 pandemic" which consists of expert interviews looking at the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on minority language media across Europe. The individual interviews in this series have been posted as 10 different pieces since July, featuring expert scholars and practitioners who focus on one specific linguistic sphere. This post provides an overview and comparative analysis of the series, which was divided into six different themes discussed for each case.  

ENTAN – European Non-Territorial Autonomy Network is a COST Action aimed at examining the concept of non-territorial autonomy (NTA).

The Network, which the ECMI is a part of, has recently published two calls for applications: Call for ‘Short Term Scientific Missions’ (STSM) and Call for Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITC) conference grant applications.

In our tenth and final expert interview in the series on minority language media and the effects of COVID-19 pandemic, we return to the British Isles for an in-depth analysis of Scottish Gaelic. Dr. Douglas Chalmers, Senior Lecturer in Media and Journalism at Glasgow Caledonian University, provides a thorough overview of the situation for that linguistic sphere, in particular by focusing on the public service broadcasters BBC Alba and Radio nan Gàidheal.

The European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) is currently looking for interns to assist remotely with the project Autonomy Arrangements in the World.

Our ninth interview on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on minority language media, features an interview with Rudolf Urban outlining the situation for the German minority in Poland. As editor-in-chief of the Wochenblatt.pl weekly newspaper, Rudolf is well-placed to provide insight into the situation in this linguistic sphere which also has radio, TV and a sizeable online presence. This interview highlights the new practices which the newspaper has had to adapt to, as well as outlining how the activities of the German minority had shifted to be mostly online.

On Wednesday, 30 October 2020, the ECMI Director Vello Pettai and Senior Researcher Ljubica Djordjević paid a visit to the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein. The ECMI was invited to participate in the meeting of the Committee for European Affairs (Committee for Federal and European Affairs, Cooperation in the Baltic Sea and North Sea Area, and Minorities).

Returning to a non-kin state setting for our eighth interview in the ongoing series, Onno Falkena details the case of Frisian in the Netherlands. A seasoned journalist for regional public broadcaster Omrop Fryslân in the province of Fryslân / Friesland, Onno is well-positioned to provide first-hand experience of the situation during the lockdown months earlier this year.

From 8-11 September 2020, ENTAN – The European Non-Territorial Autonomy Network (www.entan.org) will hold its first Training School in Flensburg and Sønderborg, co-organized by the Centre of Border Region Studies of the University of Southern Denmark, the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for European Studies at the Europa-Universität Flensburg.

The seventh interview in our ongoing series sees Dr. Jenny Stenberg-Sirén detailing the case of Swedish in Finland. With vast experience as an academic and a journalist, Dr. Stenberg-Sirén is able to provide an extensive analysis of the Swedish language media in Finland, which includes national public TV and radio, as well as a large array of daily newspapers.

The important role of the ECMI in the German-Danish border region was acknowledged by being selected as one of the few institutions visited by the President of the Schleswig-Holstein Parliament Klaus Schlie and the Minister-President Daniel Günther on their tour in the border region. The two-day summer trip was held due to the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of the plebescites which led to the border demarcation between Germany and Denmark

The tenth edition of the Annual Summer School on National Minorities and Border Regions co-organized by the ECMI and Coppieters Foundation has been officially opened and is now running. The participants arrived safely in Flensburg yesterday and were welcomed by the Summer School Team during the introductory meeting at the ECMI Headquarters.

The German minority in Denmark is the focus of the sixth post in our ongoing expert interview series on minority language media and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Editor of Der Nordschleswiger, Gwyn Nissen, gives us an insightful overview of the situation for the German minority’s daily newspaper and its online news site, and the mixed effects the pandemic has had and is having. 

Our fifth interview on minority language media (MLM) during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic focuses again on a case in Spain, with Prof. Dr. Aida Martori Muntsant (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) discussing the situation of Catalan language media in Catalonia. An MLM sphere with a substantial array of institutions including many local TV and radio stations as well as and print and online newspapers, the situation for Catalan media was nonetheless greatly affected by the pandemic.