The European Commission is in the process of reviewing its regulatory approach to the audiovisual sector. A 2003 Communication the Commission announced three Focus Groups to be organised with experts.
Eurocare, an EPHA member, is part of the Focus Group 2 organised by the Commission which debates the level of detail in the regulation of advertising.
Eurocare has issued a document with comments and recommendations. You can download the document at the bottom of this article.
As the principal non-governmental organisation advocating the prevention of alcohol related harm across the European Union, Eurocare has limited its comments and concerns to matters regarding article 15 (about alcohol advertising), and Article 12 to 16 of the Television Without Frontiers Directive as well as any matters that may be discussed regarding co-regulation mechanisms at community level and regulatory criteria.
Article 15 and public health protection
Eurocare disagrees with the Commission’s consideration of article 15 as satisfactory regarding public health protection.
Some of the key recommendations are as follows:
Member States should ensure that alcoholic beverages are not designed or promoted to appeal to children or adolescents
The Commission should support the Member States in their efforts to implement these recommendations
Eurocare supports an evidence-led approach to alcohol policy, and the issue of alcohol advertising should not be an exception.
Implementation of article 15
Eurocare also has concerns about the implementation of article 15 in the Member States. On this regards, they recommend:
The Commission should immediately look at the possibility of adding objective parameters to article 15, such as time limits (e.g. 21:00 hours), programme limits (e.g. youth and sports) and limits on concentration of alcohol advertising (e.g. no more than 1 commercial per advertiser per programme). These objective parameters are already being implemented in most Member States
In accordance with article 23a of the Directive, the contact Committee should investigate how the monitoring and the effective implementation of Article 15 has been done in the Member States in order to facilitate an exchange of information on the situation and the development of this article. Images of alcohol advertising across the different Member States should be examined as well as the codes of conduct that sustain them.
The European Commission should set up an independent advisory expert group which would look at reducing and resolving the differences of the specific provisions covering alcohol advertising in all the Member States.
The advisory expert group should be made up of at least 50% of professionals working in public health as well as professionals working in television advertising in order to be recognized as a valid entity by all people involved.
Co-regulation and self-regulation
Despite claims from the advertising and alcohol industry that self-regulation of alcohol advertising is effective, Eurocare would like to claim that it is not.
The World Health Organisation has noted that the effectiveness of codes in developed countries is often undercut by their vagueness, while in developing countries and the transitional markets of Eastern Europe codes are unlikely to be well enforced.
Eurocare believes that it would be simpler and more effective for the European Commission to take the approach of introducing objective parameters to article 15.
They also urge the European Commission to consider the volume of alcohol advertising as well as its content, as recommended by the EU Council of Ministers, to which the European Commission is already theoretically committed.
For an explanation on how regulation and self-regulation works at EU level, read EPHA’s briefing note.
