In today’s vote in the Internal Market Committee (IMCO) on budget amendment BUDG/3 – a pilot project to set up an EU-wide “repository” for online political advertising – the result was a tie of 21 votes in favor and 21 against, with 7 abstentions. Because there was no majority, the proposal failed. A decisive role was played by the two ESN Members of the European Parliament, Arno Bausemer and Volker Schnurrbusch, who voted against it.
ESN group MEP Arno Bausemer explained:
“We have prevented €500,000 in commitments and another €250,000 in payments from flowing into half-baked projects that above all mean one thing: more EU control over political communication between politicians, parties, and citizens.
Liberal MEP Sandro Gozi apparently wants every piece of political online advertising in the EU to be registered. That may sound harmless, but it opens the door to censorship mechanisms, prepares them, and shifts responsibility from national authorities to over-bureaucratized, largely anonymous, unaccountable EU structures and their offshoots.
Our task, on behalf of our citizens, is to safeguard freedom of opinion and expression – not to smother it in bureaucracy.
Today’s vote shows that the ESN group is a decisive counterweight. It stands for freedom of speech and fair competition of political ideas”
