Brussels rolls out plan for transparency in political ads and expats’ voting rights

The European Commission has presented a proposal on transparency and targeting of political advertising that will require any political advert to be clearly labelled, and include information as to who paid for it and how much.

The Commission will also update current EU rules for “mobile citizens” and their right to vote in European and municipal elections as well as on European political parties and foundations.

Political targeting and amplification techniques would need to be explained publicly in unprecedented detail and, would be banned when using sensitive personal data without explicit consent of the individual.

“Elections must not be a competition of opaque and non-transparent methods. People must know why they are seeing an ad, who paid for it, how much, what micro-targeting criteria were used,” Vice-President for Values and Transparency, Vera Jourová said.

“New technologies should be tools for emancipation, not for manipulation. This ambitious proposal will bring unprecedented level of transparency to political campaigning and limit the opaque targeting techniques.”

The main measures set out in the proposed Regulation on transparency and targeting of political adverts include strict conditions for targeting and amplification.

Political targeting and amplification techniques, which use or infer sensitive personal data, such as ethnic origin, religious beliefs or sexual orientation, will be banned. Such techniques will be allowed only after an explicit consent from a person concerned.

Targeting could also be allowed in the context of legitimate activities of foundations, associations or not-for-profit bodies with a political, philosophical, religious or trade union aim, when it targets their own members.

For the first time it will be mandatory to include into the ads’ clear information on what basis the person is targeted and to publish which groups of individuals were targeted, on the basis of which criteria and with what amplification tools or methods, among others.

Organisations making use of political targeting and amplification will need to adopt, apply and make public an internal policy on the use of such techniques. If all transparency requirements cannot be met, a political add cannot be published.

Member States will be required to introduce effective, proportionate and dissuasive fines when the rules on transparency of political advertising are breached.

The Commission has also proposed to revise the EU rules on funding of European political parties and foundations. The current framework had a number of loopholes, preventing the parties and foundations from operating and fulfilling their mission to represent the voice of EU citizens.

The Commission will also update current rules on European elections for around 13.5 million citizens who do not vote in their own countries.

The Commission proposes targeted amendments to existing rules on electoral rights including, among others, obligation to inform such citizens proactively of their electoral rights, use standardised templates for registration as voters or candidates as well as use of language broadly spoken by the mobile EU citizens residing at the territory.

The proposal also includes safeguards for EU mobile citizens not to be de-registered from electoral roll in the country of their origin.

The proposals will now be discussed by the European Parliament and the Council.

To ensure that the 2024 elections to the European Parliament take place under the highest democratic standards, the aim is for the new rules to enter into force and be fully implemented by Member States by spring 2023, i.e. one year before the elections.