Madrid, February 25th, 2025.- The Council of Ministers has studied this Tuesday the draft law that will adapt the Spanish legal system to the European regulations on digital services and media. In particular, the text includes amendments to three existing laws to incorporate the provisions of the European Union Regulations 2022/2065 (European Regulation on Digital Services) and 2024/1083 (European Regulation on the freedom of the media).
The future standard will modify Law 34/2002, of July 11, on services of the information society and electronic commerce, to designate the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) as coordinator of digital services, granting it broad powers of control, supervision, inspection and sanction on digital platforms. For its part, the Spanish Data Protection Agency will be responsible for supervising the provisions related to the prohibition of advertising based on special categories of personal data or on the profiling of minors.
With this step, it is operationalized and facilitates that “the CNMC ensures that the providers of digital services (i.e. platforms, search engines, etc.) Comply with the Digital Services Act. We are talking about encouraging Internet service providers to establish channels for reporting illegal content, requiring transparency on the algorithm’s recommendation criteria and on the advertising present on their platforms and protecting consumers when they make online contracts,” Minister López said in his speech at the press conference following the Council of Ministers.
“With this initiative, we are making progress in protecting digital rights and defending the quality of our democracy. Today more than ever, Europe and Spain must provide a secure digital space where all fundamental rights and the specific rights of consumers and users are protected. Because what is illegal offline must be illegal online,” the minister said.
The draft also establishes a rigorous sanctioning regime to guarantee compliance with obligations in the field of digital services, with fines ranging from 30,000 euros for minor infractions to reach 6% of the offender’s annual world turnover for very serious infringements.
Public Media Registration
The draft also includes the amendment of General Audiovisual Communication Act 13/2022 of 7 July to create a State register of media service providers of a public nature, under the auspices of the CNMC, in which the state-level media must register and keep up to date information on their ownership structure and revenues derived from institutional advertising. The registration will be freely accessible for consultation by any person. In addition, autonomous registers will be created, which will be coordinated with the State registry, in which media service providers of autonomous scope will be registered.
In addition, a new procedure led by the CNMC will be established to evaluate the impact on media pluralism of concentration operations in the media market, when those operations involve media that exceed certain thresholds of audience or volume of business that will be established by regulation.
Finally, the draft bill includes the modification of Law 3/2013, June 4, on the creation of the CNMC, to change the structure of this body in order to adapt it to the new responsibilities assigned to it by the standard.