EUROPEAN FUNDRAISING ASSOCIATION (EFA)

A Constructive Approach to the EU’s New Political Advertising Rules

Some of the most interesting pro bono collaborations happen when big law firms, usually advising the world’s largest tech companies, turn their expertise toward helping civil society navigate the very rules those companies now have to follow.

That’s exactly what happened when a leading international law firm partnered pro bono with a European charity network to help make sense of the EU’s new political advertising regulation – not by picking a side, but by helping everyone better understand the rules of the game.

The Backdrop: A New Regulation, A Lot of Interpretation

The Regulation on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) introduces transparency and accountability requirements for political advertising across the EU: who’s sponsoring an ad, how it’s targeted, how much was spent. It’s a sensible response to legitimate concerns about opacity in online political communication.

As platforms began adapting their advertising policies to comply, some took a broad, cautious approach – restricting political and social advertising more widely than the Regulation strictly requires. For charities running fundraising and awareness campaigns, this created a genuinely tricky grey area: campaigns that are clearly civil society communication, not political advertising in the traditional sense, were sometimes swept into the same restrictive categories.

The European Fundraising Association saw the opportunity to help their members get the interpretation right. A clearer shared understanding of where the TTPA’s scope actually begins and ends benefits charities and platforms alike.

Their questions were straightforward:

Where exactly do charitable organisations sit in relation to the TTPA’s rules on political and social advertising – based on what their messages say, and what kind of organisation they are?

How does charities’ advocacy and campaigning communication relate to fundamental rights like freedom of expression and the right to impart information – and how can that be explained clearly to platforms making fast policy calls?

A Pro Bono Partnership With a Twist

Based on a referral from a fellow pro bono clearinghouse part of the European Pro Bono Alliance, Pro Publico matched them with a leading law firm for pro bono legal support.

What made the collaboration particularly valuable was precisely this vantage point: a team with deep, practical fluency in how platforms think about compliance and risk, applied in service of helping civil society communicate its position clearly and constructively.

The firm’s team delivered a detailed legal analysis of the TTPA’s scope: how the Regulation defines political advertising, how that definition maps onto typical charity fundraising and awareness content, and how the underlying fundamental rights considerations fit into that picture. Beyond the written analysis, the team proactively drafted a practical guide that the beneficiary organisations, and others like them, can use to engage constructively with platforms when their content is miscategorised.

The Outcome

A representative from the charity umbrella body noted that the firm’s engagement was thorough and responsive, with the practical guide standing out as something the team proposed on its own initiative – giving the organisation something concrete to act on right away. They reflected: “We found the advice very helpful and would like to thank you sincerely for your assistance. It was truly valuable!” 

The analysis is informing the umbrella body’ ongoing dialogue with the national and European policymakers on how the TTPA is being applied in practice. It has strengthened conversations with policymakers and regulators at the national level.

Why This Matters

This case is a nice example of what pro bono legal support can look like at its best: not adversarial, but bridge-building. A firm that spends most of its time advising the technology sector brought that exact expertise to help civil society organisations articulate their position clearly – giving everyone, platforms included, a better shared understanding of what a relatively new and still-settling regulation actually requires. That kind of clarity tends to be good for constructive dialogue all around.

Pro Publico is proud to have facilitated this collaboration between the European umbrella organisation and the very best that Big Law has to offer.

Do you need legal or advocacy support to advance a public interest?