On 11 March, the European Council officially adopted the Regulation on Political Advertising. The EBU welcomes the final Regulation, which introduces a definition of political advertising that clearly excludes editorial content. It further takes a nuanced approach to transparency requirements offering flexibility appropriate to the medium used, be it TV, radio, or online, offering suitable levels of clarity for citizens on who is behind a particular ad/campaign.

François Lavoir, Senior EU Policy Adviser, EBU, said: “We are pleased that lawmakers have clearly distinguished editorial content from political advertising. The new rules must not affect media’s capacity to report freely on political issues that affect citizens’ lives. We also appreciate that the new transparency requirements have been designed to suit different media formats and we will closely look at how these provisions will be translated in practice.”

For the next steps, the EBU looks forward to cooperating with regulators to implement the law in a way that benefits audiences while mitigating the practical impact on media’s operations.