On 16 January, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in response to the European Commission Communication ‘Towards an EU strategy on the rights of the child’. The resolution addresses the effects of media and advertising on children.  

 

On 4 July 2006, the European Commission adopted the communication “Towards an EU strategy on the Rights of the Child”, setting out the following priorities for developing a comprehensive strategy on children’s rights:

- Capitalising on existing activities while addressing urgent needs

- Identifying priorities for future EU action

- Mainstreaming children’s rights in EU actions

- Establishing efficient coordination and consultation mechanisms

- Enhancing capacity and expertise on children’s rights

- Designing a communication strategy on children’s rights

 

In response to these objectives, the European Parliament adopted a resolution which, among others, makes reference to the following issues:  

 

- The European Parliament “points to the worrying fact that obesity, especially among children, is on the rise in Europe; underlines that estimates indicate that more than 21 million children are overweight in the EU, with this figure growing by 400,000 each year; calls on the Commission to bring forward proposals to regulate aggressive and misleading advertising and to improve the provisions for nutritional labelling of processed food in order to tackle the growing obesity problem;

- “The European Parliament calls on the Commission and European member states to [introduce] stronger regulations on advertising for alcoholic beverages and the sponsoring of sport events by the alcohol industry, in the form of a ban on advertising between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., and by prohibiting advertising for alcohol in children's content (computer games, comics), so as to not communicate a positive image of alcohol to children, and prohibiting alcohol beverages which in their design are hardly different from sweets or toys, since children cannot make the distinction between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.”

Media

- “Calls on the Member States to tighten their controls over the content of television programmes shown at a time when the number of child viewers is at its highest and to aid parental control by providing adequate, homogenous information about television programmes; emphasises that information technology gives further possibilities for children to access television programmes at any time, from any computer with an Internet connection; points out that greater consideration is needed to review the mass media's unrestricted right of access to children and the right of the child to access the mass media without restriction;”

- “Underlines the importance of media literacy to promote more informed use of the various media with the introduction of educational content.”

 

The resolution is not part of a legislative process, and as such no mandatory action has to follow it. However, the European Commission will take further steps on developing the ‘EU strategy on the rights of child’ and is likely to take the European Parliament’s view into account.

 

 

WFA will address the issue at the next meeting of the Responsible Advertising and Children Programme on February 12th.