The National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) called on the Government to guarantee the means and mechanisms that ensure the distribution of the press throughout the national territory, after VASP admitted the interruption in eight districts.
“ANMP follows the protests of the municipalities and populations involved and calls on the Government to guarantee the means and mechanisms that ensure the distribution of the press throughout the national territory”he says.
The VASP administration announced, last week, that it admits to interrupting the daily distribution of newspapers in the districts of Beja, Évora, Portalegre, Castelo Branco, Guarda, Viseu, Vila Real and Bragança.
To this end, VASP invokes the financial situation that the company is going through, with the drop in sales and the significant increase in operating costs.
In a statement sent to the Lusa agency, the ANMP considers that this “will call into question access to information, since there will be areas of the country that will be excluded from the press distribution routes, which until now has been ensured throughout the territory”.
“The ANMP absolutely disagrees with the assumption of this type of measures, as it puts into question access to information for all citizens regardless of the region where they reside, further penalizing low-density territories that already suffer from increased problems compared to the rest, due to the continuous reduction of essential services for the populations”, he points out.
The ANMP also warns that, if this decision is not reversed, “it will call into question the right to information and the full exercise of citizenship”.
“It will worsen territorial inequalities at a time when we must increasingly promote social and territorial cohesion”, he concluded.