Guidelines on the use of Minority Languages in the Broadcast Media for freedom of expression. In that case, the Court specified (in para. 38) that the public’s entitlement to receive information and ideas of general interest “cannot be successfully accomplished unless it is grounded in the principle of pluralism, of which the State is the ultimate guarantor. This observation is especially valid in relation to audio-visual media, whose programmes are often broadcast very widely.” In the same vein, Article 9(4) of the Council of Europe’s 1994 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (Framework Convention) requires States Parties to “adopt adequate measures in order to facilitate access to the media for persons belonging to national minorities and in order to promote tolerance and permit cultural pluralism”. Moreover, Article 10bis of the 1989 (amended 2002) European Convention on Transfrontier Television (ECTT) requires States Parties to endeavor to avoid endangering media pluralism. The Declaration on the Freedom of Expression and Information, adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in 1982, in Article II(d) stipulates the objective to achieve “the existence of a wide variety of independent and autonomous media, permitting the reflection of diversity of ideas and opinions”. The OSCE participating States, in paragraph 6.2 of the Cracow Document, have expressed their conviction that a diversity of private-sector broadcasters “helps to ensure pluralism and the freedom of artistic and cultural expression”. 3) The duty of the State to protect the linguistic (and other) identity of persons belonging to national minorities is entrenched in a number of international instruments and in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Article 1 of the 1992 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (U.N. Declaration on Minorities) is particularly relevant: 1. States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity. 2. States shall adopt appropriate legislative and other measures to achieve those ends. Article 4(2) further stipulates that “States shall take measures to create favourable conditions to enable persons belonging to minorities to express their 15