Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg has severely criticised the Welsh Assembly Government after Rhodri Glyn Thomas, the Heritage Minister, announced on Tuesday that only £200,000 per annum will be made available to support the Welsh language press, despite a clear promise in the One Wales Agreement that the level of support would include specific subsidy sufficient to set up a daily Welsh language newspaper.

In a letter to Rhodri Glyn Thomas Cymdeithas yr Iaith accuses the Coalition Government of breaching one of the One Wales promises. “The commitment to a daily newspaper in Welsh is clear in the agreement” said Hywel Griffiths, Chair of the Welsh Language Society. “Many people in Wales supported the Labour/Plaid coalition based on the commitments made in the One Wales agreement. A few months later, both Plaid and Labour have broken their promise to the people of Wales”.Dyddiol Cyf, one of the possible contenders for funding to establish a daily newspaper and the only company to have researched the possibility of doing so, noted that between £600,000 and £1million were needed in the first year to establish a daily Welsh language newspaper. The Assembly Government, in offering a quarter of this, is obviously not serious about supporting the Welsh language press. Dr Tony Bianchi’s independent review of the Welsh language print media, commissioned at Rhodri Glyn Thomas’ request, noted clearly that a significant amount of money was needed to realise the plan of establishing a daily newspaper.“Other European governments support a variety of newspapers in minority languages with many millions of pounds. For example the government of the Basque country gives a grant of a million pounds a year to Berria, - the Basque daily newspaper. Both languages have a similar number of speakers.” said Hedd Gwynfor, Cymdeithas’ Vice-Chair. “Under the European Charter for Minority and Regional Languages, the government has a duty towards the Welsh language print media.” In 2004, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts, which monitors the implementation of the Charter, noted of Welsh that “the availability of daily news in printed form is lacking...When compared with other regional and minority languages in Europe which are in a similar position to Welsh in the UK, this is anomalous”.“The Assembly Government keeps telling us they want to create a bilingual Wales, but they are yet to back up this rhetoric” he said. “The government keeps throwing millions of pounds to prop up projects that keep failing to stay within budget, as we have seen during the last few weeks, but the Welsh language press and the hope of a daily paper in our language is left to wither despite their promises. The Welsh language is the biggest linguistic community in Europe that has no daily newspaper. A daily newspaper is vital for any thriving language in the twenty-first century How many more promises included in the One Wales document will not be implemented? A Welsh Federal College? A new Welsh language act?”.