EDITORIAL ⟩ New euro blow to hit political parties

16th May 2025, 13:02

The new EU regulation does not apply to social media.
The elections in Romania were not won with the help of traditional media.
The regulation requires public debate.

The European Union has adopted a regulation – and we would like to remind you that a regulation is for undisputed implementation, not for national adaptation – according to which media publications must start providing information on political advertisements from the third quarter of this year. This directly concerns Estonia already during the local government elections, which, as we know, will take place in October.

The idea of the regulation is noble: to determine where election sponsorship money comes from and to rule out foreign influence. However, the regulation's control mechanism is cumbersome and bureaucratic, and creates a significant administrative burden. Postimees argues that instead of solving problems, it creates more, and that it would be right to significantly simplify the proposed system. The creators of the regulation do not seem to be familiar with the modern media world, which is something publishers could be consulted on. Let us recall that the alleged election interference in Romania did not occur by buying off traditional journalism, but with influence activities on social media, such as TikTok. More precisely, influencers and trendsetters were paid to promote a hitherto little-known presidential candidate, which led to an explosive increase in their popularity.

This does not mean that traditional journalism lacks influence, but what happens there is already better controlled. Social media, on the other hand, remains largely in the twilight zone. The proposed EU regulation does not shine a single ray of light on it. The main purpose of the regulation is to check the origin of money. Media publications do not have the relevant competence, as they are not security organizations or anti-money laundering agencies that can carry out surveillance or obtain bank statements. If it becomes apparent that there has been undue influence, a national supervisory body can, figuratively speaking, pull the plug on the election, as happened in Romania, and influence the election results, albeit in a completely different way.

Our political parties should think before they press the button in the Riigikogu hall, because the result could determine their own future for a long time. It can already be said that the regulation contains technical requirements that are not even possible to meet. By now, several major publishers in Europe have already announced that they will abandon publishing political advertising altogether, because the risk of receiving huge fines due to the complex requirements is too great. The same may happen in Estonia.

Postimees has previously criticized the thoughtless and hasty adoption of EU requirements by our legislator. Now our political parties should think before they press the button in the Riigikogu hall, because the result could determine their own future for a long time.

Furthermore, since the proposed regulation has an impact on our political life, it deserves a thorough public debate before adoption. However, no public debate has taken place so far. Postimees wants to start with this, so that we can find a good implementation for a good idea.