EASA Welcomes President Juncker's Focus on Better Regulation

EASA – the European Advertising Standards Alliance , warmly welcomes the newly unveiled team and shape of President-elect Jean Claude Juncker’s European Commission.

EASA is particularly pleased to see the priority given to pursuing the better regulation agenda , in particular the nomination of First Vice-President-elect Frans Timmermans to lead the Commission’s work in this area.

Effective advertising self-regulation helps ensure responsible advertising, meeting consumers’ demand for honesty and transparency, society’s demand for responsibility and engagement and businesses’ demand for freedom to operate responsibly. EASA and its members have developed a robust and coherent system of advertising self-regulation that can respond effectively to new challenges, such as Online Behavioural Advertising . We have been involved in the current Commission’s Community of Practice for Better Self- and Co Regulation since the initial consultation process began back in 2012. EASA’s Director General, Oliver Gray, Vice Chairman, Dominic Lyle ( EACA- European Association of Communications Agencies ), and Executive member, Angela Mills Wade ( EPC - European Publishers Council ), bring their considerable experience of self-regulation to the table as members of the Community’s Steering Group as well as through their participation in offline sessions of the Community.

We look forward to hearing the views of Mr Timmermans on advertising self-regulation, during his European Parliament committee hearings for the position of First Vice-President in charge of Better Regulation, Inter-Institutional Relations, the Rule of Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. And we will continue to provide our expertise in the area of effective self-regulation as a way towards better regulation in the five years ahead.

EASA’s Chairman, Guy Parker (Chief Executive of the UK ASA ) ,said:

“I’m delighted to see Mr Junker’s focus on better regulation - doing more on the big things and less on the small things.  Our message to his Commission is this: support effective advertising self-regulation and give us the space to operate and we will help you deliver on your promise to look for the most efficient and least burdensome approach. ” 

Notes:

About EASA

EASA – the European Advertising Standards Alliance, is a network of 54 organisations committed to making sure advertising is legal, decent, honest and truthful through effective self-regulation.

EASA’s membership is made up of 38 self-regulatory organisations (27 from Europe and 11 from the rest of the world) and 16 ad industry associations, including advertisers, agencies and the media. Together we work to promote responsible advertising through effective self-regulation.

For more information please visit www.easa-alliance.org

Self-Regulatory Organisations (SROs)

SROs, sometimes known as advertising watchdogs, are responsible for the application, enforcement as well as any revisions of national self-regulatory codes.

SROs handle complaints, usually free of charge, issue sanctions when ads are found in breach, provide advice to the advertising industry to ensure that ads are not in breach of the code and monitor published ads (usually in specific sectors) to check whether any breach the code.