At a conference held in London last week by Unigraphical, the global union for the printing industry, Steve Sibbald, national officer at the UK's Unite, said it was important to ensure members were "still in the industry despite the diminishment of the printed word".

At the conference, criticism from across the EU states, was levelled at the BBC – bizarrely placing Unite in the same camp as its old enemy News International, which has criticised the broadcaster recently.

Sibbald said: "Local newspapers have to rely purely on revenue from its customers and it is an unfair advantage that the BBC is able to do the same thing at the expense of the taxpayer.

"It does put us in a strange place to be supporting News International's opinion, but we will criticise anything that jeopardises our members' jobs."

At the event print unions from across the EU states, alongside the European Federation of Journalists, put together a declaration with their views on how the newspaper sector can be better served – the first time that printers and journalists have come together to make such a statement.

In the declaration, the unions called for more support from governments across the EU, more support from the European Commission and for employers to engage more with employees.

News International itself did not go uncriticised, as in his opening speech, Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke hit out at the publisher as one of the main reasons why newspaper printing jobs were being lost in the UK at such a fast rate.

Unite believes that News International now has the firepower to print all of the UK's national titles.

Burke said: "Unite expects no more than six 'supersites' in the UK. The biggest danger of all is News International's Broxbourne site."