European Commission Issues Green Paper On Commercial Communications

The European Commission has issued a Green Paper covering the review of its future policy on commercial communications. This covers all forms of advertising, direct marketing, sponsorship, sales promotions and PR. The EC is now seeking views on the proposals.

A review carried out to provide research for the Green Paper found that cross-border activity is growing; at present different national regulations can create obstacles for companies, and also customers wanting redress against an unlawful action. The need for information concerning different regulations and market developments is becoming increasingly important.

Based on these preliminary results, the Green Paper outlines the following basic policies:

• Existing regulations may have to be reviewed where they hamper cross frontier activity
• The potential development of new barriers within the Internal Market needs to be tackled
• Future National and Community Measures must be developed to conform with both Internal Market and Community objectives.

Based on the results of the research and the above proposals, the Commission invites response on the following:

1. To improve the assessment of any future regulations, the Commission proposes a methodology. This could be targeted at specific public interest objectives, or at a national level the methodolgy could be useful to assess the legality of possible barriers.
2. Better co-ordination and information at a European level is needed. The Commission proposes to establish a committee to consider the activities that fall within the scope of commercial communications. This would examine broad issues to assist the Commission’s approach. In its early meetings it will pay particular attention to the areas of sales promotions and sponsorship, as these are identified as areas causing the most difficulties.
3. The Commission also proposes that a central contact point be established to both deal with enquiries about its policies, and make available information about the Commission’s overall approach. These would also have the effect of reducing the time needed for investigation of infringement procedure from what can at present be five years down to as little as three months.

A fuller account of the Green Paper will be published in the next issue of the newsletter Commercial Communications, published by ASI in association with DGXV of the Commission. There will also be a speaker from the Commission at the European Advertising Effectiveness Symposium to be held in Lisbon on May 23/4 who will outline for the first time on a public platform the Commission’s proposals.

Further details from Mike Sainsbury, ASI: 01273 772741