On Thursday, 17 March, the Saeima adopted in the final reading amendments to the Advertising Law proposed by the Economic, Agricultural, Environmental and Regional Policy Committee; these amendments establishing uniform regulations for posting advertisements will come into effect in 2012.

Thereafter the Cabinet of Ministers will set regulations for approving the posting of advertisements in public places and places that face public places. Local governments or institutions designated by local governments will still be responsible for issuing permits for posting advertisements; these permits may still contain particular requirements set by specific local governments.

Currently, all local governments have significantly different procedures, for example, for approving the posting of an advertisement some local governments require four times as many documents and six times as many procedures as do others. Representatives of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development explained earlier to the Committee that the current procedure is chaotic and burdensome for entrepreneurs.

MPs supported the provision that in their binding regulations, local governments will still be able to set restrictions regarding the size, format, light and sound effects of each advertisement in order to ensure that they blend with the environment and architecture at a given site. Local governments will also have the right to prohibit the posting of advertisements of certain products or services in certain locations.
 
The new regulations will come into force as of 1 January 2012.

Saeima Press Service