New rules from Europe
Alastair Tempest
Two principles supposedly inform the EC's single market: 'mutual recognition' and 'subsidiary', and these might be hoped to preserve existing national advertising regulation arrangements. However it looks increasingly unlikely that the European Parliament will allow this; more certain that ever tougher, wider-ranging controls - however anomalous - will be imposed from the top. The precedent of tobacco regulation, inter alia, threatens many other sectors, and a new 'publiphobia' is abroad to encourage interference.
One might ask why there should be any prospect of new rules for advertising in the new Europe....