Sandro GOZI (Renew, FR), Rapporteur, holds a press conference on transparency and targeting of political advertising before the vote in plenary. The new rules enhance the integrity of election campaigns and help fight disinformation and foreign interference. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

press conference

funding of European political parties (T)

GOZI, Sandro (Renew, FR)

Press conference by Sandro GOZI (Renew, FR), rapporteur on the final vote on Transparency and targeting of political advertising

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandro GOZI (Renew, FR), Rapporteur, 'I am satisfied and we as a European Parliament, we are satisfied for having achieved this result, which is an important result because it increases transparency. And I am convinced that the transparency is the basis to protect our democracies. So with this regulation, when it comes to political advertising, we will know as citizens, as voters, who says what and who pays, who pays for what. So full transparency. And I think that this is certainly something that we need. We need because the challenges of the new technologies are important, but we also need it becausethere is a need to increase our protection through also legislative and not only political means against interference from foreign powers and against disinformation campaign from this perspective. We are very proud as a member of European Parliament to have introduced a new element compared to the initial proposal of the Commission, which is a ban of four non-European actors to finance political advertising campa...

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandro GOZI (Renew, FR), Rapporteur, We are not naive. We do not think that this is the silver bullet, the final solution, but certainly something very important which makes the life of some actors in Europe more difficult and which gives out a very strong signal around the world. We also better protect our freedoms because to protect our personal data, sensitive personal data, non sensitive personal data, it is a way of protecting our our personal freedoms. So also from this perspective, I am convinced that we take an important step ahead. And last but not least, we finally create a single market of political advertising services. It is totally absurd that we talk about European elections and until this regulation we are obliged, for example, the European political parties, to sign 27 contract with Facebook to carry out a campaign during the European election.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandro GOZI (Renew, FR), Rapporteur, 'We dismantle these barriers. We are going to reintroduce we I mean, create a truly single market for political advertising. I think that this is going to help a lot also the next European election, because this provision and the provision concerning the definition will apply already on time for the next European elections. I also want to thank the Spanish presidency because, I mean, I got a very fruitful and proactive cooperation from the Spanish presidency. So I thought it was important to recognise this collective effort. I also want to thank Vice-President of the Commission, Věra Jourová and my colleague  Sabine Verheyen and all the shadow rapporteur. This has been difficult really and collective work that we have done and we are very satisfied for this. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sandro GOZI (Renew, FR), Rapporteur, Just let us inform our citizens about this very important political step that we have taken. We always talk about this information. We also talk about foreign interference. We complain about the fact that we don't know exactly who is behind the political advertising declaration in the electoral campaign. We introduce full transparency on all of this. So it is important, especially ahead of European elections. But ahed of any election because these rules will apply to any kind of election, municipal or regional, national, presidential and European. It is better that you help us to inform the citizens about this very important step for the protection of our democracy, for the increase of transparency in the European political space. Thank you very much.