The beginning of EU political advertising law: unifying democratic visions through the internal market

• Published in: International journal of law and information technology 2022-11, Vol.30 (2), p.181-199
• Main Authors: van Drunen, Max Zeno, Helberger, Natalie, Ó Fathaigh, Ronan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0967-0769; 1464-3693
• DOI: 10.1093/ijlit/eaac017

The regulation of political advertising has traditionally been a sensitive issue—unsurprisingly so, as it determines if and how political actors can pay to communicate with voters. Given the differences between national electoral systems and the lack of a consensus on the best regulatory approach, until recently neither the EU, the Council of Europe nor the European Court of Human Rights laid out strict standards. Following mounting concerns over the impact of opaque and manipulative targeted advertising in the 2016 US election and Brexit referendum, the EU’s proposal for a regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising breaks with this trend. This article analyses how the proposal is set to regulate political advertising, and evaluates how the proposed regulation fits into the EU’s competences to regulate democratic processes and affects existing national legal frameworks. The article concludes by assessing the new roles the EU and the Member States assume in political advertising regulation.