The Draft Law on Advertising may be Voted by the End of November.

MPs aim to adopt final version of the draft Law on Advertising by the end of November. This was announced by Stefan Creanga, Chair of the Committee on Economy, Budget and Finance, during the meeting of the working group on the improvement of the mass-media legislation of 13 October.

 ‘The goal of the Committee is that the draft Law on Advertising to be voted by the end of November’, Creanga specified.
During the meeting, all provisions that gave rise to adverse opinions regarding the review of the project in the first reading on 11 October this year, were discussed seriatim. Representatives of the advertising business, officials from the Chisinau Mayor’s Office and others participated in the discussions.

Representatives of the Mayor’s Office opposed the article which provides that ‘the violations found during the enforcement of the law in force on the content of advertising images in outdoor advertising are not reason for suspension/withdrawing/canceling the authorisation’. They consider that the Mayor’s Office must have authorization powers, after the content of an image was verified.
Eugen Ribca, one of the authors of project, expert in media legislation, explained that such prerogatives of the Mayor’s Office are in contradiction with the constitutional provisions on the prevention of censorship in the works of art. Furthermore, other state institutions that will have control duties in this respect, will handle the content of advertising images.

The document was developed by experts of the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) and was registered as legislative initiative by Speaker of Parliament Andrian Candu and two other MPs from PDM faction, Vladimir Hotineanu and Corneliu Mihalache. The draft Law is part of a broader IJC campaign focused on modifying the Law on Advertising and improving the situation in the field in general.
Note that importance of adopting new Law on Advertising is emphasized in the Report of the European Parliament (EP) on Implementation of EU-Republic of Moldova Association Agreement.