Objective of the Political Advertising Regulation
The following text has been prepared by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs.
The broader objective of the Regulation on the Transparency of Political Advertising (hereinafter the Political Advertising Regulation) is to ensure the functioning of the internal market. The legal basis for the Regulation is Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), which gives the right to introduce measures to ensure the functioning of the internal market of the EU. In a situation where many Member States have introduced national rules to regulate the transparency of political advertising, this could lead to fragmentation and ultimately uneven transparency in the regulation of political advertising as an international service. The fragmentation of the Regulation has a negative impact on the functioning of the internal market. Therefore, regulation in this area has been harmonised with directly applicable EU legislation.
The first objective of the Regulation is to contribute to the proper functioning of political advertising in the internal market and to establish harmonised standards to ensure transparency of political advertising services. These standards will apply to political advertising service providers when advertising is published on the territory of the Union, irrespective of the location of the advertising service provider.
In an open and democratic society, it is essential that citizens get verifiable information on political issues in order to form their opinions. This way, citizens can be informed as they participate in the public debate and express their will through free and fair political processes.
The second objective of the Regulation is to protect the data of natural persons during the processing of personal data, and to this end it introduces rules that address the targeting of political advertising.
Supervision of the Regulation on the Transparency of Political Advertising
Although the Regulation on the Transparency of Political Advertising is directly applicable EU legislation, it is up to Member States to designate nationally the competent authorities to carry out supervision. In Estonia, the Act Amending the Advertising Act and Personal Data Protection Act 696 SE has been initiated in Estonia to allocate the competencies.
After the approval of the Riigikogu, the amendments resulting from the draft act will be incorporated into the Advertising Act and the Personal Data Protection Act. All the requirements for political advertising stem directly from the EU Regulation and are not imposed nationally.
The Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA) and the Data Protection Inspectorate (AKI) will be designated as the supervisory authorities in the draft. More specifically, it is proposed to divide the competences as follows:
- The obligations set out in Articles 5–17 and 21 of the Regulation on the Transparency of Political Advertising will fall within the competence of the TTJA.
- Articles 18 and 19 of the Regulation on the Transparency of Political Advertising will be placed within the competence of the AKI.
Where can answers be found?
The Political Advertising Regulation is a new legal act, which has not yet been applied in practice. It is therefore difficult to answer all the questions. Here you will find a summary of references and links to the relevant documents which the TTJA strongly recommends to read.
- First of all, the Political Advertising Regulation itself: click here.
- Next, it is important to understand what kind of information should be provided in labels and transparency notices, and how – this information and the explanatory notes can be found here.
- The Commission has also created the Guidelines to support the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2024/900 (on the transparency and targeting of political advertising). The guidelines explain which questions should be answered to recognise political advertising. The Guidelines also give many examples of what is and is not political advertising.
- Finally, the latest information on the national draft can be found here: Act Amending the Advertising Act and Personal Data Protection Act 696 SE.
The following text has been prepared by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs.
The definition of political advertising comes from the Regulation (Article 3) and Member States do not have the right to change this definition.
The Regulation also clarifies what is not considered political advertising. First of all, for example, political opinions expressed in any medium under editorial responsibility, unless specific payment or other remuneration is provided by third parties for or in connection with their preparation, placement, promotion, publication, delivery or dissemination (recital 29). Secondly, political opinions expressed in a personal capacity are not political advertising (recital 30). Thirdly, purely personal or commercial messages are not political advertising, even if this advertising is done by a subject that meets the definition of a political actor.
The following is also considered political advertising:
- messages from official sources that are strictly limited to the organisation and modalities for participating in elections or referendums, including the announcement of candidacies or the question put to the referendum, or for promoting participation in elections or referendums. This includes, for example, notices from the State Electoral Office or the Ministry of the Interior;
- public communication that aims to provide official information to the public by, for or on behalf of any public authority of a Member State or by, for or on behalf of the Union, including by, for or on behalf of members of the government of a Member State, provided that they are not liable and designed to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, voting behaviour or a legislative or regulatory process; and
- presenting candidates in specified public spaces or in the media which is explicitly provided for by law and allocated free of charge, while ensuring equal treatment of candidates. This includes, for example, debates on Estonian Public Broadcasting.
When providing the advertising service, the service provider must require the political advertiser to provide information that the advertisement ordered is a political advertisement. The information required in the Regulation should be presented already in the contract entered into for the provision of the political advertising service. The political advertiser is responsible for the accuracy of the information. If the information provided changes during the provision of the advertising service, the advertiser must update it on its own initiative (Article 6).
For the purpose of determining whether a message constitutes political advertising, account shall be taken of all its features, including
a) the content of the message;
b) the sponsor the message;
c) the language used to convey the message;
d) the context in which the message is conveyed, including the period of dissemination;
e) the means by which the message is prepared, placed, promoted, published, delivered or disseminated;
f) the target audience;
g) the objective of the message.
The elements to be considered for the determination of political advertising and the questions addressing them can be found in Commission guidelines to support the implementation of the Political Advertising Regulation (Table 1 in section 2.3.).
An expert committee will be established by a directive of the Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs under the draft of the Act Amending the Advertising Act and Personal Data Protection Act 696 SE. The TTJA can ask them for their opinion on whether an advertisement constitutes political advertising within the meaning of the Regulation. According to the draft, the expert committee will deliver its opinion within 10 days.
The members of the expert committee include the representative appointed by the Political Party Funding Supervision Committee and other experts in the field who can assess the purpose and impact of advertising and give their opinion.
The Commission adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1410 on the format, template and technical specifications of the labels and transparency notices of political advertisements in accordance with Articles 11 and 12 the Political Advertising Regulation.
A label added or attached to political advertisement must clearly and unambiguously inform the reader, viewer or listener of the information set forth in Annex II to the Implementing Regulation.
The following can be found in Annex I to the Implementing Regulation:
- specific requirements for television and radio (point 2);
- specific requirements for printed media (point 3);
- specific requirements for digital medium (point 4).
The following can be found in Annex II to the Implementing Regulation:
- template for visual labels (point 1);
|
POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT • (The sponsor is controlled by [either (a) business name of the legal entity or (b) name and surname of the natural person]) • (The advertisement is linked to [title and date of the election(s)] or [name of the legislative or regulatory initiative]) More information that leads to the transparency notice: [webpage link or QR code]. |
- template for audio labels (point 2).
Where a webpage link, QR code or equivalent user-friendly technical measures are used to provide a reference to where the transparency notice can be retrieved from, they shall lead directly to the transparency notice.
The template for transparency notices can be found in point 3 of Annex II to the Implementing Regulation.
The technical descriptions for transparency notices can be found in Annex III to the Implementing Regulation.
Frequently asked questions
No, this is not possible as a unilateral decision by Estonia, because Member States do not have the legal framework for this. The Regulation is directly applicable and will be implemented in all EU Member States from 10.10.2025.
They do not have to be labelled. This is the case even if their publication continues after 10 October. However, the European Commission recommends labelling them.
No, this solution is not suitable. Every advertisement must be linked to its own specific transparency notice. The label must include a clear reference to where the transparency notice can be found easily and directly. This requirement is not met if the QR code leads to a database where the user has to search for the notice of the specific advertisement. In addition, the transparency notice must contain information relating to the specific political advertisement and its campaign.
However, the same QR code may be used if the advertiser publishes the same political advertisement through different channels. For example, if the same advertisement is displayed on billboards in different parts of the city.
The same transparency notice may be used in several advertisements with different designs if they are part of the same campaign, share the same objective and message, and if the information in the transparency notice applies to all of them.
For example: a campaign using several animated videos that are designed to appeal to people from different cultural backgrounds, but that convey the same key message and have the same aesthetic qualities.
A political party posting political advertising on its own behalf on social media (without a paid publication service), even if the preparation of the political advertising involved a paid service (e.g. provided by a public relations company), would be considered political advertising published through an internal activity, and no labelling or transparency notice is required.
Political advertising can exist in different forms and objects, and there are no limits on its publication and dissemination. The Regulation does not regulate what information is allowed in political advertisements or the factual accuracy of messages. However, when classifying different forms and objects as political advertising, it is always important that it contains a message. This means that content that cannot be categorised as a message (e.g. a logo on a promotional item or the name of a political actor) does not fall under this definition, as long as no political message is attached to such content.
A pen, a matchbox, a balloon or a condom is a political advertisement from the moment it contains a political message.
An activity as such (e.g. handing out pens) is an internal activity if the party members themselves distribute political advertising material with campaign messages. Internal activities are political advertising, but they do not require labelling or transparency notices.
Yes, this is political advertising. The Regulation does not apply to political opinions or other content covered by the editorial responsibility of a media channel, unless third parties pay a monetary or non-monetary consideration for or in connection with the preparation, promotion, publication, transmission or dissemination of such opinions or content.
Thus, a situation where a person who is a candidate in elections writes an opinion piece that falls under content marketing, is related to a political actor and/or aimed at influencing the result of elections or a referendum, voting behaviour or the legislative or regulative process, and if the publisher has been paid for this (content marketing is a paid form of advertising), constitutes political advertising.
It is not political advertising if the message is of a purely private or commercial nature.
The Regulation is not limited to the election period. The requirements of the Regulation must be met at all times.
In order to assess whether a message is political advertising and whether transparency requirements apply, it is necessary to consider in whose interest the message is published and whether the message is intended to influence the political or electoral process. In the case of the application of transparency requirements, an assessment must be made of whether a paid service has been involved in its publication and earlier stages.
Someone sharing a personally expressed political opinion without being paid for doing so is not political advertising.
A politician publishing an opinion piece on his or her blog or on social media without using an external paid service at any stage is political advertising (an internal activity), but the obligation of labelling and provision of a transparency notice does not extend to this.
In a situation where a politician wishes to publish an opinion piece in a media publication as a content marketing article, the content published is political advertising, which must also comply with the requirements imposed on the publisher.
A situation where a media publication writes an opinion piece that influences politics on its own initiative is not political advertising and the requirements of the Regulation do not apply to such content.
All in all, it is important to assess first whether the advertisement is political and then whether it was produced, published or disseminated using an outside paid service. It is the ‘fee’ that determines whether the content disclosed is also subject to the requirements applicable to the publisher.
Political messages on posters and banners prepared by citizens to participate in a political demonstration as an expression of personal opinion do not constitute political advertising.
Last updated: 03.11.2025
