Yesterday the European Sponsorship Consultants Association staged a forum to discuss the Fremion Report on Sponsorship and Patronage for the EC Culture Committee.
Yves Fremion, the French Green MEP, has put forward a report to the European Parliament concerning sponsorship which has proved controversial. The forum was called to address the issues raised before the Fremion Report is discussed again in Europe, as well as the forth-coming EC Green Paper next year on Commercial Communications.
The Fremion Report is in its third draft, and the EC Culture Committee is due to debate it again in November.
M. Fremion outlined his main points, indicating that his proposals have been greatly exaggerated by the press; his report does not call for any change in actual legislation, but he is very worried about the present use of sponsorship, and believes the issue must be discussed in Europe.
His main points are;
- Sponsorship must be defined much more precisely, and equally over the whole community.
- The difference must be appreciated between non-lucrative patronage, in which there are very few examples of indecent practices, and sponsorship for financial benefit, which must be studied to try and avoid malpractices.
He gave some examples of the kinds of practices which he finds personally horrifying; for example skiers forced to ski in bad weather , just because the sponsors demanded their logos to appear on television.
Fremion’s main aim is to introduce a European code of conduct to be agreed by all member states.
Bryan Cassidy, British MEP, put his point of view across, claiming that member states should be allowed to decide on their own sponsorship rules. In principle, Cassidy believes no-one is against a regulatory code of conduct but that it should be decided at a national level.
Fremion summarised by saying that his main intention when he wrote the report had been to create argument and debate on the subject of sponsorship, and to bring it to people’s attention.
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