The International Federation of Journalist and its regional group, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), today expressed their support for journalists working for seven Dutch regional papers of Mecom's Wegener publishing house, who will strike next week in protest over management's plan to cut more than 10 percent of its journalists in a drastic downsizing.

"The recent announcements of plans to drastically cut staff in the Wegener newsroom shows once more that the media is in a deep crisis and that the profession of journalism is at risk," said Arne König, the chair of the European Federation of Journalists. "Journalists cannot do their work decently when they do not have the time for reporting. This would be the end of quality journalism at newspapers owned by Mecom in the Netherlands."

The EFJ is behind its affiliate in the Netherlands, the NVJ, and the 750 journalists working for the seven regional newspapers and will support the announced strike starting coming Monday, 7 July.

"We are in solidarity with our colleagues and believe that such drastic job cuts will not help to turn around the loss-making papers," König added. "We cannot just stand and watch while corporate greed is putting journalism and quality news at risk."

The Wegener Publishing house just announced plans to make between 400 and 465 staff persons redundant, including 75 to 85 journalists. Very similar redundancy plans have been announced at the Berliner Verlag in Germany, which is also owned by David Montgomery's Mecom.

For more information contact the EFJ at +32 2 235 2200/02

The EFJ represents over 250,000 journalists in over 30 European countries