The successful National Women's Council campaign that forced Bank of Ireland to cut its links with a pornography distribution company could spark a Europe-wide boycott campaign against all porn firms, according to a Swedish MEP.
Vice President of the European Parliament's Women's Rights Committee, Marianne Erikkson, has called for the de-listing of porn companies from stock exchanges and has urged the EU to boycott hotels and other establishments which promote pornography and prostitution.
Ms Erikkson is in Dublin to meet representatives of the National Women's Council and Ruhama, the voluntary group which has been campaigning for women trapped in Ireland's sex industry. Ms Erikkson is enthusiastic about last week's successful campaign in Ireland.
Bank of Ireland was forced to pull out of a €7m loan agreement to help Remnant Media to buy 45 magazine titles last week after a campaign involving labour, the Catholic Church and women's groups.
Remnant is reported to be keen to become the first porn distributor to raise funds on the London Stock Exchange.
Already Sweden's Private Media Group and Germany's Beate Uhse (AG) are quoted on the NASDAQ and Frankfurt Exchanges, a practice which Ms Erikkson's draft report insists must be stopped in the EU.
The report also calls on the Brussels Commission to consider revising television directives to restrict the supply of illegal and / or unsolicited programmes to viewers who request them.
It also calls for US-style pornography laws to stop the advertising of porn via e-mail.
The report says that almost three quarters of money spent by Europeans on the Internet in 2001 went to porn sites.
