The European Union has strengthened its rules around political advertising to block foreign influences in the run-up to key votes such as elections or referendums.
The new rules will target online political advertising in particular, which has become susceptible to disinformation and manipulation in recent years, following the 2016 US presidential election.
EU lawmakers have now ruled that so-called “third country sponsors” will be unable to pay for any political advertising within the European Union in the three-month period before either an election or a referendum.
In a bid to further restrict the freedom of bad actors, the EU has also banned any political ads based on profiling or using minors’ data. Additionally, all political adverts will now need to be clearly labelled, including information about who paid for the ads and how much they spent.
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First proposed by the European Union in 2021 to increase transparency around around political advertising in the wake of rising ‘fake news’ scandals, the new rules have been created to safeguard the integrity of future elections and referendums.
“We don’t think this is the silver bullet, but certainly something important that makes the lives for some actors more difficult,” said Sandro Gozi, the lawmaker responsible for pushing through the proposals.
“We finally create a single market for political advertising services. The provision to ban non-EU actors to finance campaigns will apply on time for the next EU elections, but generally the rules will apply to any vote; regional, municipal and national.”
