Bill to align Spanish laws with EU digital services and media rules

Automatic summary, not yet reviewed

1. The bill would adapt Spanish law to two EU regulations: the digital services regulation (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) and the media services regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1083).
2. It would designate the National Markets and Competition Commission (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia) as digital services coordinator, in charge of overseeing compliance with most obligations under the digital services regulation, and the Spanish Data Protection Agency (Agencia Española de Protección de Datos) for rules on ads using special categories of data and profiling of minors.
3. It would create a penalty regime for breaching the digital services regulation, with fines of up to 6% of the provider's total annual worldwide turnover for the most serious violations.
4. It would repeal the articles of Law 34/2002 that regulated the conditional exemption from liability for intermediary service providers, because that framework is now directly regulated by the EU regulation.
5. It would create a procedure to review media market concentrations that could significantly affect media pluralism and editorial independence. In very serious cases, the deal may be blocked or made subject to conditions.
6. It would create a state register of media service providers, public and merely informative, containing data on their ownership and state advertising. Registration would not be a requirement to operate.
7. It would extend the General Audiovisual Communication Law to the press, renaming it the General Audiovisual and Media Communication Law, and would define new violations, such as failing to guarantee editorial independence or breaching audience measurement rules.
8. The law would take effect the day after its publication in the official state gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado), except for some provisions on devices and audience measurement, which would take effect on May 8, 2027.

Words worth knowing

Servicio intermediario (intermediary service)

A service that stores, transmits or gives access to third-party content, such as online platforms, hosting services or search engines.

Concentración (concentration)

A transaction in which two or more media companies merge, or one buys another.

Pluralismo de los medios (media pluralism)

The existence of varied and independent media outlets with different editorial lines, so information does not depend on a few owners.

Coordinador de servicios digitales (digital services coordinator)

The public authority each EU country must designate to oversee compliance with the EU digital services regulation.

Diligencia debida (due diligence)

The set of care and responsible conduct obligations the law imposes on a service provider to prevent risks.

It summarizes the text as it was introduced. It is written by artificial intelligence and may contain mistakes: the official text is what counts. Read the official text · How we make summaries