Online political advertising:

Who is affected? Political parties, candidates and foundations, civil society campaigners using ads, online platforms, data brokers and publishers of political ads.

What does the proposal regulate? It puts forward transparency obligations and some targeting restrictions for online ads considered political. It also defines ‘political advertising’.

Where in the legislative process are we? The European Commission has published its proposal, now the European Parliament and the Council (Member States) are each developing their own position. On that basis, negotiations will start, possibly later in 2022. The legislative proposal puts forward April 2023 as the start of implementation.

Under the chapter on “A new push for European democracy” of her Political Guidelines, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stressed the need to regulate digital platforms as a way to protect European democracies from external interference and destabilisation. This is further elaborated in the European Democracy Action Plan (EDAP), where the Commission elaborated on why a Regulation on Political Advertising is needed and provided an initial indication of the transparency measures expected in such a regulation.

In the context of the elaboration of the EDAP, a public consultation was conducted. The results of the consultation showed that EU citizens want and ambitious regulation of political advertising online to enhance transparency and restrict unfair practices, as:

• 91% of the respondents indicated that they want disclosure rules at the EU level for political ads;
• 90% want the creation of open and transparent political advertisements archives and registries that show all the targeted political content, as well as data on who paid for it and how much;
• 90% want political parties that run adds to disclose their campaign finances broken down by media outlet; and
• 83% would like to see restrictions to micro-targeting, with roughly 70% of the respondents favouring strict limitations to micro-targeting.

Transparency: For oversight and public scrutiny of campaigning, you need full transparency on the spending and advertising activities of political parties and actors (like influencers or fake NGOs) advertising on behalf of political parties. The principle of transparency itself is not controversial, but the exact measures needed to provide the necessary transparency remain debated. One of the key ideas is advertising libraries for public scrutiny in combination with meaningful ad transparency notices at individual ad level.

Targeting: The harms of hyper-targeted messages, the fragmentation of public discourse, and the disenfranchisement of the right to information of people not targeted by an ad are some of the key concerns with targeting. The proposal puts forward some modest limitations on the use of data for targeting, and imposes additional transparency requirements. In civil society and the Parliament, some are calling for a full ban on targeted political ads. Others want to restrict targeting to only age, language and location. Others insist on regulating the amplification of ads, in addition to transparency and restrictions on targeting.

Definition: What is a political ad? It makes sense to include ads from political parties, candidates and anyone receiving money or support from these political actors, but how far do you want to go in regulating non-traditional actors, like civil society? The Commission proposal casts a wide net, to capture as much campaigning as possible that is not commercial in nature. Civil society organisations warn against such an approach, as this will limit a lot of grassroots awareness raising and fundraising activities. It is a fine balance to strike!

Enforcement and sanctions: With 27 Member States with each a different set-up of electoral authorities, data protection authorities and digital market regulators, enforcement will not be straightforward. The Commission counts on the GDPR and DSA enforcement structures and proposes guidelines for sanctions, but stays short of proposing minimum sanctions. Some of the ideas on the table are the introduction of minimum sanctions, a European-wide coordinating body, or even a European regulator. As electoral matters are politically sensitive, this discussion is expected to become heated.

Committees responsible: IMCO (Internal Market and Consumer Protection)

Leading Committee:

• Rapporteur:
  • Sandro GOZI | RENEW (FR)
• Shadow rapporteurs:
  • Pablo ARIAS ECHEVERRÍA |  EPP (ES)
  • Maria-Manuel LEITÃO-MARQUES | S&D (PT)
  • Alexandra GEESE | Greens/EFA (DE)
  • Stelios KOULOGLOU | GUE/NGL (EL)

State of the negotiations: Pending decision by Conference of Committee Chairs on the roles of the different committees.

• Key dates:
• Past:
  • 13/12/2021    Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading
  • 10/01/2022    Discussion with the Commission in IMCO
• Future:
  • N/A

• Council configuration: General Affairs Configuration (GAC)
• Working Party: General Affairs Working Party
• French Presidency until June 2022, then Czech Presidency
• State of the negotiations: Conversations started in January 2022
• Timeline: TBD
• Key dates : TBD
• Adoption desired before April 2023, when the regulation should enter into force