Tools such as the "geoblocking" pose a threat to the enhancement of multilingualism in EU border regions. The free access to audio-visual contents in the language of the neighbouring country, indeed, is still too often denied along EU borders..
This is exactly the situation of the German-speaking Community of Belgium as illustrated by the advice case submitted by the Euregio Meuse-Rhine.
In order to find possible solutions to the impossibility for local citizens to acess contents from Germany, the Euregio was consulted by experts from the Maastricht University.
The first tangible results following the resolution strategy proposed are already visible.
Thomas de Vos, former contact point at the Euregio Meuse-Rhine, comments:
"b-solutions helped us to acquire a comprehensive assessment of the situation and to mobilize stakeholders who were previously not involved. This resulted in a major involvement of the political decision-makers in either sides of the border to seek for dialogue and to find solutions to overcome the legal and administrative obstacle at the benefit of the population. There is, in these regards, a positive impact as this process drew attention on an issue grounded upon scientific expertise and arguments.
The expert, indeed, provided not only a sound assessment of the legal situation but also advised upon an action plan on how to tackle and overcome this problem through practical steps.
These documents are of high value for us as they have been already discussed in different parliamentary assemblies, leading to resolutions, as for instance the one on geo-blocking by the parliament of the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which introduced a ban on this practice".
Current contact person at the Euregio Meuse-Rhine is Michael Dejozé.
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