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Complaints procedure
Complaints about infringements on the time ban can be submitted to the Commissariat for the Media (cvdm@cvdm.nl). Any one may file a complaint through mail or email. Many of the complaints and their outcomes are publicly available on the website of the Commissariat for the Media. The evaluating committee consists of one president/chairman and 2 or 4 other members. The current Commissariat consists of people who are familiar with media monitoring and can considered to be independent. The members are nominated by royal decree and recommended by the minister. The evaluating committee can apply penalties in the form of financial penalties. For complaints about the voluntary restrictions of the alcohol industry itself, people can file complaints at the Advertising Code Committee. Complaints can be filed digitally over the internet, though at the time of writing portions of the complaints page are outdated.
In the Netherlands three different regulations exist that specifically refer to alcohol marketing and advertising.
1. The Alcohol Licensing and Catering Act (Drank- en Horecawet), which is a statutory law to regulate the selling of alcoholic beverages;
2. The non-statutory ‘Advertising Code for Alcoholic Beverages’ and the Guideline for Promotions by the Catering Industry (Richtlijn voor Horeca promoties). The latter contains additional guidelines to the ‘Advertising code’ and
3. the Media Act 2008.
The statutory ‘Drank- en Horecawet’ contains one article that makes it possible for the government to establish regulation for alcohol advertising and marketing without having to make a whole new law. But currently there is no such governmental regulation for alcohol advertising and marketing (except for one article that refers to separating alcoholic beverages from non-alcoholic beverages on the shelves of stores).
So the ‘Advertising Code for Alcoholic Beverages’ in practice contains the main regulation of alcohol marketing and advertising in the Netherlands. This self-regulation code is the way in which the rules of the Audiovisual Media Service Directive are incorporated in Dutch regulation. The text of it is designed by a CSR-organization funded by the alcohol industry. The complaint and sanctioning system connected to it is organized by a self-regulatory organization of the advertising industry. The ‘Richtlijn voor Horeca promoties’ contains additional guidelines that have no public system of control.
Since 2009 a new Media Act 2008 is in place. This has introduced a time ban on alcohol marketing on Dutch television and radio between 6.00 and 21.00 o’clock. While traditional marketing is prohibited in this time slot, sponsorship messages of alcohol producers and retailers are allowed in a neutral way that only depicts the brand name/logo. The time ban was intended to limit the volume of advertising that young people are exposed to. Research by STAP, the Dutch Institute of Alcohol Policy, however has revealed that young people actually see more alcohol advertisements because the alcohol industry has tripled the number of alcohol advertisements that are aired after 21.00 o’clock.
The following document contains an in depth overview of alcohol marketing regulations in Austria: alcohol-marketing-regulations-Netherlands.pdf
For even more (but older) information on alcohol marketing regulations in Austria, please take a look at the Netherland’s appendix to the 2007 ELSA (Enforcement of national Laws and Self-regulation on advertising and marketing of Alcohol) report.