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Articles in this category:  13.09.2007 / MEPs widely support restrictions on car advertising
click to close On Wednesday, 12 September, the Environment Committee in the EU Parliament adopted a report that foresees, inter alia, burdensome requirements for car advertising to serve environmental demands in the current climate change debate. Chris Davies, a liberal MEP from the UK, presented an own-initiative-report to the Environment Committee of the EU Parliament in June this year. In yesterday’s vote, in the Committee MEPs widely supported his green ideas that aim to reduce CO2 emissions of cars.
FAEP and other European media and advertising associations lobbied against the unacceptable provisions of Chris Davies to meet his environmental targets by dictating restrictions for car advertising. Unfortunately, his suggestions were widely supported by MEPs from the Green party, the Liberals (ALDE) and the Socialist Group and therefore the plenary will have to vote in mid November 2007 on a report that – beside other restrictions – curtails the freedom of advertising in the name of environmental protection.
While the report is non-binding, if it is adopted by the Parliament in November as it stands, the EU Commission would face some pressure to incorporate at least some of these proposals in their draft legislation that will serve as a basis to negotiate with the car industry a voluntary code-of-conduct.
For two reasons publishers are concerned about how the draft Report of Chris Davies proposes that mandatory minimum requirements should be set for labeling and advertising, concerning CO2 emissions and fuel economy.
(1) It is one of the fundamental values of the European Union to protect freedom of expression. This freedom applies for editorial speech as much as for commercial speech. By introducing statutory advertising requirements, as proposed in the Chris Davies Report, the fundamental right of freedom of expression is infringed. The producer of legally offered products in the EU market should be able to pronounce publicly about its products without any other restrictions other than those enshrined in existing national and/or European law and self-regulatory codes.
(2) At a time of great uncertainty for ‘traditional’ media and with advertising spending being shared more and more thinly across the different media, old and new, publishers oppose any political measure that has the potential to imbalance the advertising revenues of the press as this has a severe impact on the independence and diversity of the press, so fundamental for a democratic society. Statutory advertising requirements with an anti-promotional effect in print media (such as being obliged to devote space to non-promotional text) might lead to less advertising for print in total. Apart from such advertising moving from print to broadcast, radio, outdoor, internet etc, the direct link between editorial pages and advertising pages in a newspaper and magazine indicates that the diversity of the press (quantity) and the independence (quality) can only be guaranteed on a free advertising market.
Therefore FAEP questions the approach of the draft Report in practical terms. Advertising is the life-blood of the printed press. Revenues gleaned from advertising – not copy sales - allow for an independent and vibrant press in Europe.
Car advertising represents up to 20% of total advertising revenues for print publishers. At a time when advertising spend is fragmenting across the old and new media, the printed press seems to face a never-ending stream of new advertising restrictions and/or requirements which only serve to squeeze the ability of the press to provide quality, trusted content catering for a broad spectrum of interests.
Policy makers should rather be encouraging measures which allow for the maintenance of a strong press sector in Europe. We ask the Parliament to consider in any case that the consumer’s decision to make a purchase depends considerably more than just the sight of a single advert.
Contact: Max von Abendroth / max.abendroth@faep.org / Ph.: 0032 2 536 06 04 click to close |
