Video of Carlos San Juan

2025-04-08T09:19:34Z


Testimony by Carlos San Juan: Retired doctor, European Citizen 2022, Spain.
Subtitles available in English and in French.

We delivered our open letter at the European Parliament

2025-02-19T12:57:19Z

On 30 January 2025, we presented our campaign and delivered our open letter signed by 650 civil society organisations and scientists at the European Parliament.

The event was a success, the room was full with partners and stakeholders and we had powerful inputs.

Among others, Marthe Diomande, literacy learner at Lire et Écrire, gave a poignant account of the experience of people with literacy needs: You go to the bank, they ask you to go to the terminal, you start to panic, everyone's looking at you. The shame, the panic... it's unbearable. You feel rejected, abandoned and useless to society. We no longer have a private life, because we're dependent on our children or strangers to help us.

The event was sponsored by members of the European Parliament: Estelle Ceulemans (S&D), David Cormand (The Greens) and Catharina Martins (The Left). All three received a copy of the open letter and gave us encouraging feedbacks.

A European Commission representative was also present, Jiri Svarc (head of unit Social Rights and Inclusion, DG EMPL). Mr. Svarc showed understanding for our concern and mentioned that the upcoming Anti-Poverty Strategy will include measures to fight against digital exclusion. He also mentioned the EC was increasingly aware of the issues caused by digitalisation of services.


Presentation of the Right to Offline open letter: Extract, by Louise Culot, Lire et Écrire.
Subtitles available in English and in French.


Testimony by Carlos San Juan: Retired doctor, European Citizen 2022, Spain.
Subtitles available in English, in Spanish, and in French.

We also had an excellent press coverage:

The open letter was published in Belgian national newspaper Le Soir: Tout le monde doit avoir accès aux services essentiels, sans passer nécessairement par le numérique
We had a full page in Spanish national newspaper El Pais: Más del 40% de los europeos carece de habilidades digitales para gestiones ‘online': “No ponen facilidades al ciudadano, sino barreras”
A feature was aired on Belgian national radio channel RTBF La Première: Analphabétisme numérique (at 7min57)

We will now take a little time to reflect on the follow-ups and next steps to pursue our action at European level.

Last but not least there is an important initiative taken by the Belgian Human Rights League to file a complaint before the European Committee of Social Rights on potential discrimination caused by digitalised essential services. Along with other organisations, we will help The Human Rights League to collect testimonies / cases and build a solid case.

We will keep you informed about our next actions.

Thank you again for your support.

Results, video, and outlook… and need your help

2024-10-03T08:25:11Z

Almost 500 associations and scientists from 21 countries who signed the open letter calling on the European authorities to guarantee offline access to all essential.

We thank them for taking this stand.

We hope that many more associations and scientists will sign this text soon.
Therefore, we need your help. We encourage you to send an e-mail to the associations and scientists you know, asking them to sign the open letter.

To explain our approach, you can use the following introducing video:

English subtitled

Download: without subtitles,
with English subtiltes,
with French subtitles.

Open letter publication, including in newspapers

We will soon organise an event to publicise the open letter.

If possible, we will also intend to publish the text in various European newspapers.

If you have good contacts in major national newspapers (e.g. in France, Spain or Germany), please contact Louise Culot to coordinate the press campaign: louise.culot@lire-et-ecrire.be

Thanks in advance!

Right to offline

Video of Carlos San Juan

We delivered our open letter at the European Parliament

Results, video, and outlook… and need your help

Open letter publication, including in newspapers