Parliament begins consideration of new draft Law on Advertising in line with European standards

The new draft Law on Advertising, developed by experts of the Independent Journalism Center (IJC), was registered on 4 June as a legislative initiative in Parliament. The draft has three MPs as authors – Speaker of Parliament Andrian Candu, Vladimir Hotineanu, and Corneliu Mihalache. The act aims to improve the legal framework for advertising, aligning it to the European law.

The draft law is part of the extensive IJC campaign to amend the Advertising Law, which started by publishing the Assessment of the Legal Framework Regulating Advertising in the Republic of Moldova. The research highlighted a number of legal loopholes, and subsequently a new draft law was developed on the basis of the experts’ conclusions and recommendations.

The authors of the document, IJC experts Eugeniu Ribca and Ion Bunduchi, included in the new draft provisions regulating the establishment and implementation of the legal regime for messages of public interest, requirements for ensuring transparency on the advertising market, self-regulation in the field of advertising and political advertising during the extra-electoral period, etc.

According to the draft law, the following authorities will act as regulators in the field of advertising: Competition Council will protect competition in advertising; Broadcasting Council will regulate broadcast advertising and other forms of audiovisual commercial communication; Medicines and Medical Devices Agency will regulate advertising of medicinal products (medicines), medical treatments and medical equipment; National Commission for Financial Markets will regulate advertising of securities; while Council on Prevention and Elimination of Discrimination and Ensuring Equality will check advertising for discriminatory and/or sexist content.

Before being registered as a legislative initiative, the draft law was subject to debate in the Parliamentary Working Group on Improving the Media Law.

The Parliamentary Committee on Culture, Education, Research, Youth, Sport and Media announced that it would hold public hearings on the draft Law on Advertising on 12 June. Members of the Working Group on Improving Media Law, subject-matter experts, representatives of media organizations, and broadcasters are invited to hearings.