The EASA Central and Eastern Working Group, which was launched on 15 October in Bratislava, was hailed by local advertising self-regulatory organisations as a major step forward to further develop and consolidate systems in Central and Eastern Europe.

The Working Group was set up by EASA for SROs in Central and Eastern Europe to share experiences on self-regulatory challenges unique to this region.

The Working Group’s Chairman Monika Korkosova, who is also the Secretary General of the Slovakian self-regulatory organisation RPR said: “The first meeting was incredibly useful – the issues discussed were of a real practical nature and through our best practice exchange we identified a wide range of possible solutions.”

The main two outcomes of this first meeting are clear practical steps to ensure even higher standards in the region. First of all, the Slovak RPR’s system used to register and handle complaints/copy advice will be made available to other self-regulatory bodies in the region interested in updating their own systems. Second, the different educational and training programmes touching on advertising self-regulation that exist regionally will be coordinated to ensure better coverage.

“Some of us are more advanced in a certain area than others but taken overall we all face the same problems – this group is the ideal platform to learn a lot from each other”, said Konrad Drozdowski, Working Group Co-leader and Deputy Director General of the Polish self-regulatory organisation, Rada Reklamy. “We look forward to the next meeting as there are several topics for discussion”.

Members of the working group include representatives of self-regulatory bodies in Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic. Representatives from other European SROs are available when needed to provide further advice to the group.