MEPs on the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (‘JURI’) debated, on Monday 5 September, the draft report for an opinion by Angelika Niebler (EPP, German) on the transparency and targeting of political advertising.
In concrete terms, the German MEP’s text makes several changes to the Commission’s initial proposal and insists, first of all, on the importance of differentiating between editorial content and advertising. The text also proposes to limit the scope of this future legislation to the European and national levels.
“Politics is also conducted by citizens who, in some Member States, engage in politics without being paid. You have to defend the people who do politics”, she added.
This is expected to be discussed as the political groups seem to be divided on the issue, with some MEPs supporting Ms Niebler’s idea and others already expressing scepticism.
“I do not fully agree with eliminating the local and regional levels from the scope of the text. A number of manipulations are possible. Perhaps we could discuss and see if exemptions are possible”, said Patrick Breyer (Greens/EFA, German).
The Greens/EFA MEP also called for legislators to be taken into account in the text. “I myself, in the context of the DSA (‘Digital Services Act’) (see EUROPE 12973/11) have been targeted with very specific methods against the legislative process”, he said.
In addition, future discussions should also focus, in the light of the statements made by the MEPs of the JURI Committee, on the definition of political advertising in the first place, on targeting methods and on how to increase the balance between transparency and the non-propagation of disinformation bubbles.
In this regard, some MEPs, such as Antonius Manders (EPP, Dutch) warned against creating “political monopolies”. “The devil is in the detail. Only existing parties have the possibility to be elected. It is difficult for newcomers to find their place. I am in favour of the proposal, but let’s be careful to open democracy to all and not only to those who are already there”, he insisted.
MEPs will have until 8 September to table their amendments. “This debate has allowed us to assess where we are and where we can find common ground”, concluded Angelika Niebler. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)