ERC faces off against Lisbon and Porto on SIC

The Regulatory Authority for Social Communication (ERC) halted the two local government debates in Lisbon and Porto that were scheduled to take place on SIC, between Carlos Moedas and Alexandra Leitão and Pedro Duarte and Manuel Pizarro. The ERC had already issued an initial ruling on Thursday demanding that the remaining parties represented on the city council be included in the SIC debate, but the television station initially decided to maintain the format. The CDU, which had already motivated the regulator's initial decision, filed a new complaint, and this time the ERC raised its voice.

The regulator warned on Friday that SIC and SIC Notícias should indeed comply with the previous ruling, urging the television stations to adopt "an editorial approach that allows, under equal conditions, the political and social representation of candidates for seats on the municipal executives of Lisbon and Porto." In the same ruling, the regulator does not even allow SIC room to appeal, stating that "the ERC Regulatory Council understands, given the clear urgency of the procedure, that holding a hearing of interested parties is unnecessary ."

In the same decision, the ERC already leaves a precautionary warning that — if the decision is not complied with — the recipients are “subject to the payment of a monetary amount to be paid for each day of delay in compliance, counted from the date of its entry into force”, and that “the daily value of the sanction provided for in the previous number is set at 100 euros, when the infraction is committed by a natural person, and at 500 euros, when committed by a legal person”.

The regulator already has a history of decisions on this matter, as in 2021, TVI hosted a face-to-face debate between Carlos Moedas and Fernando Medina in Lisbon. The ERC considered this debate "discriminatory" at the time, but the face-to-face debate ultimately took place, as the decision was made after the debate. This time, the ERC acted in advance and demanded that the decision be complied with urgently, dispensing with the hearing of the parties and thus forcing SIC to cancel the two face-to-faces.

The now-cancelled face-to-face matches in Lisbon and Porto were scheduled for this Sunday and Monday on SIC and were the only televised debates of this format.

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