The service is the brain child of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, which was established in 1982 to promote minority languages.

The aim of the service is to raise awareness of issues surrounding lesser-used languages and their communities, and developments at EU level affecting minority languages.

We've eight stringers in countries throughout the EU who send stories almost daily. I get in at about 8.45 a.m. and see what the latest news is from the parliamentary institutions and the Council for Europe in Strasbourg. By 10.30 a.m. we have stories online.

The news from the stringers would focus on developments which have social, political and economic implications for minority-language communities. For example, we had a story about a planning decision in the Gaeltacht in the west of Ireland - which was an economic issue, but which had implications for the Irish language.

Usually we anticipate the stories we put up first thing in the morning; they are the planned stories, and that is the only regular time of the day - though you never know what's coming. For the rest of the day, I deal with breaking stories, contacting people for updates, responding to press releases and taking stories from the stringers. It's a small agency, part of a small non-governmental organisation (NGO), but the stories we cover have implications both for the 40 million people in the EU who speak minority languages and for people who speak majority languages.

We would expect support and interest from minority-language groups, but the challenge will be getting majority-language media interested in using the stories. It is a question of rights, though, and rights are high on the EU agenda. As integration continues in the EU, people increasingly feel their rights as members of minorities need to be protected. Forty million people is in fact a large minority, and it is a group of people with important votes who can influence decision-making and has quite a bit of political clout.

Austria, for example, is in the news at the moment because of concern over the state's protection of minorities. There are 25,000 Slovene speakers there as well as five other minority-language groups. The Freedom Party, part of the new coalition government in Austria, is a far-right party which is not sympathetic to minority rights.

In fact, Jorg Haider, head of the party and governor of the area most Slovene speakers live in, has made statements seen as sympathetic towards the Nazis. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which Austria is currently chairing, is concerned about the situation, and Slovenia has expressed concern for the minority groups in Austria. This is the sort of story that we cover - one which directly affects a minority but has wider implications.

I've a longstanding interest in minority issues. Just before I took up this job I'd started a PhD on the links between economic development and minority languages. I've spent years working as a journalist, so this job combines two areas I enjoy. I love the variety of issues we cover each day. We actually have too many stories coming in, so we give priority to the stories from the institutions and the more topical stories.

It is hard work, but I enjoy it. I suppose if there is anything I really dislike about the job, it would have to be the coffee!

In conversation with Jackie Bourke

Eurolang's website is at www.eurolang.net