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The rights to honour, privacy and self-image are established in the Spanish Constitution (Arts. 18 para. 1, 20 para. 4). They are considered to be fundamental rights and a limit to freedom of speech or expression, which is also protected as a fundamental right according to the Spanish Constitution. Honour, privacy and image rights are regulated in detail by the Spanish Act on Civil Protection of Right to Honour, Privacy and Self-Image. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, these rights cannot be considered to be absolutely unlimited, as was stated by the Supreme Court in a recent decision on this...

The Spanish Ministry of Culture approved, on 19 October 2009, an Order Approving Economic Aids to Cinematographic and Audiovisual Companies. Spain notified the European Commission of this Order on 29 October 2009. Before the consultation period ended, the Commission received a claim by “Filmmakers against the Order”, a group of 205 directors, technicians and film critics. The Commission, on 27 January 2010, finally approved the new System of Economic Aids to the Cinematographic and Audiovisual Activity in Spain, as it considered the Order to be compatible with the Treaty on the Functioning of the...

In March 2010, the European Commission sent a letter of formal request for information to Spain under EU infringement procedures (Article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) in relation to a new administrative charge imposed on national telecoms operators. The charge, which amounts to 0.9% of the yearly turnover of telecoms operators, was introduced through Spanish Law 8/2009 on the funding of the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation in order to offset the elimination of paid advertising on the Spanish public service broadcaster Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española...

The European Commission has approved a EUR 12 million Spanish scheme to support the dubbing and subtitling of films in Catalan. The scheme is in line with EU rules that allow State subsidies for cultural objectives and, in the case in question, for the promotion of multilingualism and cultural diversity. The scheme notified by the Spanish government aims to promote the use of the Catalan language, in particular in the film industry. Around 800 films released in Spain every year are dubbed in Spanish, while only 20-25 films are dubbed in Catalan. A further 10-15 are subtitled in Catalan. These figures...

Last Thursday, 18 March 2010, the Spanish Parliament approved the New General Law of Audiovisual Communications. This new Law has been demanded by the audiovisual sector and consumers associations and has been discussed on various occasions in the last six years in the Spanish Parliament before finally being approved. The Law sets out several rules on content and mode of operation for the players in the sector (these rules are already currently applied by broadcasters to a certain extent as, although they were not included in a general law before, they could already be found in several rules and...