Chapter VII of the Audiovidual Media Services Directive [2010/13/EU] sets rules on "television advertising and teleshopping". Maybe member states can set stricter limits.
Bear in mind that (in my country) this is averaged over a 24 hours. So you will see fewer commercials during daytime but a lot of commercials during primetime such that it averages to 12 minutes per hour.
This is for Germany. I assumed that it was EU-wide, but it may be like that in Germany only.