European Parliament (EP) President Hans-Gert Pöttering announced the adoption of written declarations on the subtitling of all public-service television programmes in the European Union (EU) and on the murder of the human rights activist Munir Said Thalib.

EP President Hans-Gert Pöttering announced the adoption of written declarations on the subtitling of all public-service television programmes in the EU and on the murder of the human rights activist Munir Said Thalib.

The declaration calls on the Commission to put forward a legislative proposal requiring public-service television broadcasters in the EU to subtitle all of their programmes.
 
MEPs consider subtitling of all public-service television programmes in the EU to be essential with a view to ensuring that all viewers, including deaf and hard-of-hearing persons, have full access to them; takes the view that this would also help with foreign-language learning.

MEPs point out that partial or complete loss of hearing is a condition that affects more than 83 million people in the European Union and given the ageing of the European population, this problem will continue to grow.

The declaration points out that universal access to television in Europe and to the fact that public-service television has a public-service mission consisting of, among other things, informing and educating viewers.