Romania bans political expression with huge fines

 Thu 10:19 pm +00:00, 16 Jan 2025  

posted by Tapestry

During the electoral campaign for the 2025 elections for the President of Romania, political actors shall ensure the publication, together with each political advertising material, of the following information:

• an indication that it is a political advertising material;

• the identity of the sponsor of the political advertising material, respectively the name, e-mail address and, if it is public, the postal address, and if the sponsor is not a natural person, the address at which it has its headquarters;

• where applicable, a mention that the political advertising material has been subject to techniques for targeting a target audience or distributing advertising materials;

• a mention that the amounts spent for the preparation, placement, promotion, publication, distribution or dissemination of political advertising material come exclusively from the sources allowed by Law no. 334/2006 on the financing of the activity of political parties and electoral campaigns, republished, with subsequent amendments and completions;

• as the case may be, a mention that the political advertising material has been the subject of an electoral promotion or a paid electoral promotion.

These provisions also apply to any promotion, distribution, posting or editing of political advertising materials on online platforms, very large online platforms, online search engines or other social networks. The details of the way of promoting, distributing, posting or editing political advertising materials are established by decision of the Permanent Electoral Authority and will be found in the Guide to the financing of the electoral campaign for the elections for the President of Romania in 2025. For the purposes of this Emergency Ordinance, in the elections for the President of Romania in 2025, any written, online, audio or video material used in the electoral campaign that directly or indirectly urges voters to choose or not to choose, to vote or not to vote for an independent candidate or for a candidate of a clearly identified political party, is considered political advertising material. The violation of the provisions constitutes a contravention, if the deed was not committed in such conditions as to be considered, according to the criminal law, a crime, and is sanctioned with a fine from 15,000 lei to 50,000 lei. https://gov.ro/ro/guvernul/sedinte-gu…