Greek toy advert ban unlikely to face legal action

Date: 27/06/1996

AFTER more than a year of talks, the European Commission now looks set to drop threats to take Athens to court for banning toy advertisements on national television.

Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti believes the Greek measure was introduced to protect local toy manufacturers from foreign competition rather than to protect under-age viewers from advertisers.

Convinced that the law fragments the single market and is unjustified, he has repeatedly tried to persuade colleagues to challenge it in court.

But, with most Commissioners wary of tackling a government on as sensitive an issue as children's welfare, the Italian has so far been unable to muster the necessary support.

At a meeting of the chefs de Cabinets held last week to discuss a stack of proposed infringement cases, those representing Sir Leon Brittan, Franz Fischler, Martin Bangemann and Erkki Liikanen supported Monti's case. But those from the Cabinets of Marcelino Oreja, Emma Bonino, Christos Papoutsis, João de Deus Pinheiro, Monika Wulf-Mathies, Yves-Thibault de Silguy and Karel Van Miert lined up against the proposed action.

Commissioners will discuss it themselves next week, when a final decision is expected to be taken.

International toy manufacturers, advertisers and television stations plan to inundate the college with an assortment of facts and figures in a last-ditch effort to swing the vote, but sources close to Monti's Cabinet say the battle has probably been lost.

A Green Paper on commercial communications pushed through the Commission last month seeks to establish clear-cut guidelines for testing the legality of national bans and so make it easier for the Commission to take member states to court.

But, with highly emotive issues such as the protection of minors at stake, objectivity is likely to give way to political expediency.

“This is clearly a protectionist measure. We even have letters from local manufacturers to the Greek government asking it to put in place the ban,” said a representative of the Toy Manufacturers of Europe, an association grouping together firms such as Lego and Hasbro.

“If they were really concerned about the protection of minors, then they would also have banned advertisements selling products such as sweets to children.”

Greece is not the only country in the Union to have outlawed toy advertisements on television.

Sweden, Belgium and Ireland have similar laws restricting broadcasts within their territories. Sweden has been running a long-running campaign to bolster its prohibition.

MEPs, supporting that campaign, voted to amend the Television Without Frontiers Directive to prevent stations from skirting national laws by broadcasting from more liberal EU countries. But that amendment has not been taken on board by culture ministers.

According to rules laid down in the controversial directive, stations must obey the law of the member state in which they are based and not of those to which they broadcast.