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According to article 1.5 of the Spanish Civil Code, International Treaties cannot be directly applied in Spain until they have been published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE - Spanish Official Journal). On 22 April, the Spanish Instrument of Ratification of the 1989 European Convention on Transfrontier Television, including the full text of the Convention, was published finally in the BOE. The aim of the Convention is to facilitate transfrontier transmission and retransmission of television programme services among the Members States of the Council of Europe that are signatories of the Convention....

A new Telecommunications law has been passed recently in Spain, replacing the 1987 Ley de Ordenación de las Telecomunicaciones (LOT). As expected, it deals only with telecommunication matters, but it nevertheless affects broadcasting to some degree. The LOT defines telecommunications as general interest services, so they are no longer considered to be a public service: only national defence and civil protection services; universal and compulsory telecommunications services (and cable and terrestrial TV) remain within this category. The LOT also deals with competition in this sector; the granting...

Despite the criticisms made by consumer groups and some newspapers which tried to prove that Law No 25/1994 on the implementation of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive was systematically being violated, between 1994 and 1997, there has been only one reported case in which a sanction was imposed for violating of the Spanish Law: in February 1995 the competent authority, the Ministerio de Fomento (Ministry of Development) gave a fine of 10 million pesetas (approx. 65.000 ECU) to Antena 3 and Tele 5 for exceeding the advertising time limits. In 1997, the Government acknowledged these alleged...

The Spanish Government has recently presented a Bill in order to implement the revised "Television without Frontiers" Directive. The Bill proposes to amend the Spanish Law 25/1994, which implemented the original "Television without Frontiers" Directive. The Bill introduces some important amendments concerning inter alia: the scope of application of the provisions of the law (it would apply to terrestrial, satellite and cable TV, and to all public and private broadcasters); the criteria used to determine in which country a broadcaster is established; the new rules on advertising (especially during...

The "Television without Frontiers" Directive was only transposed into Spanish national law in 1994 by the Ley 25/1994 of 12 July 1994, nearly three years after the deadline (3 October 1991). Since then, the Ministerio de Fomento announced twice its intention of sanctioning the television beoadcasters. The first time was on 5 November 1997, in relation to the advertising of alcoholic beverages, although the proceedings were not in based on the Directive or on the Spanish Law implementing the Directive, but on the general Spanish Law on Advertising (No 34/1988, of 11 November 1988) and more precisely...