The new rules enhance the integrity of election campaigns and help fight disinformation and foreign interference. The regulation requires political advertising to be clearly labelled, allowing citizens to see why they were targeted, who sponsored the ad, how much they paid and to which elections or referendum it pertains. Sponsoring ads from outside the EU is prohibited in the three-month period leading up to elections. All online political ads are available in an online ad repository. Opening statements by Sandro GOZI (Renew, IT), Rapporteur and Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Values and Transparency, Sabine VERHEYEN (EPP, DE), Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), Anna Júlia DONÁTH (Renew, HU), Angelika NIEBLER (EPP, DE), and Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE). This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

statement

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

JOUROVÁ, Věra (EC)

funding of European political parties (T)

VERHEYEN, Sabine (EPP, DE)

fight against hate speech, populism, and fake news on social media (T)

GOZI, Sandro (Renew, FR)

NIEBLER, Angelika (EPP, DE)

FREUND, Daniel (Greens/EFA, DE)

DONÁTH, Anna Júlia (Renew, HU)

Transparency and targeting of political advertising: Opening statements by Sandro GOZI, Rapporteur, Věra JOUROVÁ, VP of the EC, Sabine VERHEYEN (EPP, DE), Anna Júlia DONÁTH (Renew, HU), Angelika NIEBLER (EPP, DE), and Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE)

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/75030477/1708944744195_I253493Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (French), Sandro GOZI (Renew, IT), Rapporteur, Thank you, President. Colleagues. I would like to start by thanking the Rapporteurs, Madame Verheyen from the CULT Committee, all of the shadows, the Spanish Presidency, and Don&aacute;th as well from the LIBE Committee, the Belgian Presidency, the Spanish Presidency is not here, of course, but I would like to thank them and Vice President Jourov&aacute; for your cooperation and your effective work.

SOUNDBITE (French), Sandro GOZI (Renew, IT), Rapporteur, It was a difficult job to do together, but one that was very much needed and which has high expectations upon it. In 2024, we're going to see an exponential increase in disinformation, foreign interference in European elections and American elections. Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Brexit up to the Slovakian elections, we've seen enemies of our democracy. We know who their allies are in Europe. We know how they act, how they manipulate.

SOUNDBITE (French), Sandro GOZI (Renew, IT), Rapporteur, And today we are giving a strong, effective response. I firmly believe that will help to protect our elections, whether local, national or European. I need to send out strong, effective responses that will protect our democracy. We are acting to strengthen the defence of our liberty and personal data, to increase transparency of election campaigns, particularly online, and also to strengthen actions against those who want to manipulate our democratic processes.

SOUNDBITE (French), Sandro GOZI (Renew, IT), Rapporteur, 'We have seen a ban on political advertising financed by non-European actors to try to put an end to foreign interference and to better protect our elections and our democracy. We are eliminating barriers and obstacles that exist within the single market. European parties can finally carry out a genuinely European transnational election campaigns. We have harmonised labels saying to increase transparency and responsibility when it comes to political advertising.

SOUNDBITE (French), Sandro GOZI (Renew, IT), Rapporteur, The goal is to allow citizens to be able to very easily identify political advertising and above all, understand who is saying what for who and who is paying for all of this. Of course, this is with due respect to freedom of expression. We are strengthening control and transparency and we as Members of Parliament have decided to create a European register for online public political advertising.

SOUNDBITE (French), Sandro GOZI (Renew, IT), Rapporteur, 'We have specific restrictions on use of sensitive personal data for political targeting and ensure that we properly protect citizens private lives. Finally, we are setting up a robust implementation mechanism which will strengthen cross-border cooperation and have sanctions that will be a deterrent, which is in line with the DSA, the Digital Services Act.

SOUNDBITE (French), Sandro GOZI (Renew, IT), Rapporteur, So we have achieved an excellent result, one that has very much been awaited, I think, at a political level. If we, of course, adopt this tomorrow, I will be presenting the results of our work to the UN next week. This work is a significant step forward in protecting democracy against disinformation and foreign interference. We regret that not all of it will be able to be implemented before the next European elections. We will, however, see the impact of this work on all future elections, whether European or national.

SOUNDBITE (French), Sandro GOZI (Renew, IT), Rapporteur, When it comes to entry into force for this regulation, we expect to see a total of 18 months, a period, 24 months for the European registers, and some key provisions will apply already before the 2024 elections. So, I would say to Member States and to platforms that you can already start to anticipate implementations by starting off already and start implementing these measures without further, a way to ensure that we can protect our elections for our European citizens. This is a step forward, colleagues, one that is extremely positive and one that we should all support. Thank you, President.

SOUNDBITE (German), Sabine VERHEYEN (EPP, DE), CULT Chair, President. Madam Commissioner, the threat of our democracy through disinformation campaigns and attempts to influence elections become a fact. Online, it is important that we have taken this approach in Parliament to have a regulation on the transparency of political advertisin. We have a balanced approach which is not just addressing the offline approach, but also has a stricter approach online.

SOUNDBITE (German), Sabine VERHEYEN (EPP, DE), CULT Chair, Free reporting and free advertising are a keystone of our democracy. We have the preconditions under traditional media work, which should be taken into account. This is an important societal role and is a reliable source of information. In a time where is difficult to have political opinions on social media.

SOUNDBITE (German), Sabine VERHEYEN (EPP, DE), CULT Chair, This regulation gives us a clear legal base and plays a key role in protecting our democracy. We must restore trust in policy and in media as a source of information, and for the electors need transparency for that and to find out what is advertising and who is behind it also. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (Hungarian), Anna Júlia DONÁTH (Renew, HU), Honourable Members, coming from the Hungary of Viktor Orban, I know exactly when elections are neither fair nor open and clean. I know what we have to face online hate speech and propaganda, even sometimes in the middle of late night children's stories. So, I am very proud to be part of this process because our goal is to make online political campaigns and advertisements more transparent, weakening the impact of Russian and Chinese propaganda in Europe and also introducing a ban on targeting political ads.

SOUNDBITE (Hungarian), Anna Júlia DONÁTH (Renew, HU), Whom we love in what we believe, what our health status is like, it's only our business. If we don't want to share our sensitive data with the politicians campaigning in the street, then why would we let algorithms do this for them? As a politician, I must protect electors against political forces who try to manipulate them online. We have to maintain the cleanliness and fairness of European elections this year. So, I am very proud to be part of this work. I would like to thank Sandro Gozi and everybody in the LIBE Committee for their cooperation. Thank you.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission, President, Honourable Members, I am pleased to be here with you today for this debate concerning the regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising. And of course, first of all, I want to thank the Rapporteurs, Sandro Gozi, Anna Júlia Donáth and the shadow Rapporteurs. We just heard Madame Verheyen  and all the Parliament's team for their hard work on this file.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission, I think that I can confirm what we already heard from the speakers before me, that we have achieved an agreement on a complex and innovative proposal. It sounds a little bit dry. This proposal has been one of the most complex and most difficult ones. Because the more we worked on it, the more we had to cope with the totally new situation, uncharted territory.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission, Something which also contained a lot of dilemmas, not having inspiration or some proposal which might serve as a good example, how to set up the rules in this regulation. So that it can work as a very strong, let's say, younger sister of the Digital Services Act. All that was on our table. And also I remember the trialogue that it was one of the most exciting and interesting moments for government work with the Council and with the Parliament.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission, I believe that the outcome is both ambitious and balanced. It establishes a harmonised high standard of transparency for all political advertising services provided in the Internet market, as well as strict and effective protection of the personal data used for the targeting and ad delivery of political advertising. It clarifies the scope of application of the regulation to cover advertising sponsored by political actors and other advertising when it is liable and designed to influence the outcome of that democratic process.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission, And what we already heard today from Sandro, who mentioned that very important for all of us was that the law must protect the freedom of speech by providing clear exceptions for political opinion expressed in a personal capacity and journalism, internet has to remain the space for free agora and for non barriers, political and public discussion.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission, But as we all know, the freedom of speech is not the same as freedom to reach. And the agreement clearly bans the use of profiling based on sensitive personal data to target or deliver online political ads, it also strictly limits the use of other personal data to situations where the individual has provided it and consented to its use for this. Its purpose.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission, 'I want to be short. So, finally, the deal guarantees the cross-border role that European political parties and groups play within the Union, in the European Parliamentary elections. This is now becoming very important a few months before the elections. For the record, the Commission has a formal statement on the resourcing of the European repository or for online political advertising, which colleagues will be aware of, and which is being sent to the Parliament's services for inclusion in the verbatim record of this debate.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Věra JOUROVÁ, Vice-President of the European Commission, Elections are coming. I think that we will all agree that the elections must remain a festival of democracy, a competition of real people, ideas, visions, and not the competition of dirty digital methods and abused procedures. And I indicated it very well that this is one of our biggest values in the EU, that we still have a high chance of having free and fair elections. But, we have to work in that direction. So once again, thank you and well done to the Rapporteurs and his team, and your teams for having worked closely with the Commission and successfully concluded negotiations. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (German), Angelika NIEBLER (EPP, DE), Thank you very much, President and Commissioner, colleagues. Manipulative messages and fake news and social bots as well as the use of IA can obviously affects people's decisions and voting patterns. I mean, we've seen what happened with Cambridge Analytica. Now, political transparency and the targeting of political messages will be banned in future, which is a good thing. But, I do think that the rules should be shaped in such a way so as to ensure that we are able to express our political opinions and services as election campaign can still take place.

SOUNDBITE (German), Angelika NIEBLER (EPP, DE), And I think we've gone a little bit far because these rules will not only apply to European elections, but also to federal elections, as well as regional and even communal elections. So, if you're talking about very small entities, perhaps 100 or 200 electors, which are hardly comparable with the European elections in which millions of people take part. So, I do think that in some respects we've gone a little too far.

SOUNDBITE (German), Angelika NIEBLER (EPP, DE), I mean, I think that perhaps local or municipal level, you've got a lot of voluntary people there and they shouldn't perhaps be subject to such stringent regulations. You need to look at social media and all of the advertising. Once again, I think we've probably exceeded our remit. We've gone a little bit far. It's important that we have transparency, but once again, I do think we've gone a little bit far and that is why I find some sections of the proposal problematic. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (German), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), 'Colleagues. The nicest time in the life of a politician is here. The election campaign. Most of us in the next three months will try to convince people with ideas and visions for the European Union and to persuade them to vote for us in this election, they are black sheep, those who have a lot of money and dubiously try to influence the opinions of Europeans. The only interest is to make money. Oil companies reach rich Nazis and anti-Europe governments outside the EU.

SOUNDBITE (German), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), 'In particular, they hate speakers on the right know this very well. The money that they know how to deploy, money to play money to destroy the EU, we must put an end to that. And here we are. Without database, we are creating transparency where if it says political advertising on the bottle, we must say who whose money is behind it. We don't have dubious donors for anti-EU campaigns. We want open debates which make any contribution to that with this piece of legislation. Thank you.