Austria’s Wiener Zeitung, one of the world’s oldest still in print, will mostly go online, according to a decision made by the country’s parliament on Thursday.
The development is the culmination of a years-long disagreement between the Austrian government and the newspaper over the future of the state-owned daily.
The originally private bi-weekly publication, founded in 1703 as Wiennerisches Diarium and later renamed Wiener Zeitung in 1780, was nationalised by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in 1857, becoming the country’s official gazette.
“It was adopted with a majority,” Norbert Hofer, the parliament’s third president, said of a new law that will predominantly move publication online beginning July 1.
Depending on the funds available, the periodical will sustain a minimum of ten print publications per year. According to the reports, the Wiener Zeitung was ranked as one of the oldest newspapers still in print in 2004.