European Parliament calls on Commission for hard EU action

The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) welcomes the report adopted today by the European Parliament (EP), calling by a clear majority for hard-edged EU-level action in the field of online gambling, starting with a common set of rules for consumer protection.

According to Sigrid Ligné, Secretary General of the EGBA; “This vote constitutes a very welcome shift in the position of the European Parliament and we commend rapporteur Creutzmann for his achievement.”

Only two years ago in a previous own-initiative report, the EP favoured the status quo and recommended that the EU leave the regulation of online gambling strictly to the national level.  Today’s report acknowledges that, given the cross-border dimension of this growing eCommerce sector, national stand-alone solutions cannot be the way forward, and lists a series of EU actions, including:

- An framework directive
- Formalised cooperation between regulators under the supervision of the Commission
- European standards for operators, consumer protection, advertising and electronic identification

Importantly, the report also calls for:

- More efficient national licence application procedures that avoid unnecessary duplication of administrative requirements and controls that have already been verified in another Member State
- Consistent use of infringement procedures by the Commission to ensure full compliance of Member States’ gambling legislation with EU law.

This vote gives a clear direction to the Commission that is in the process of concluding its Green Paper consultation launched in March 2011 and puts the spotlight back on Commissioner Michel Barnier who is leading the exercise. With the results of his consultation and the conclusions of the Commission’s expert workshops (1) available, Commissioner Barnier has now all of the evidence he needs to take action.

Ligné concludes: “Time is of the essence given that it is precisely now that Member States are pushing ahead and reregulating their national online gambling markets. Today the Commission has received political support to initiate EU actions. But any EU level action can take years to be adopted and this cannot be a pretext for inaction against Member States that infringe EU law.”

“As the guardian of the Treaties, the Commission must act to curb further fragmentation of the Internal Market by consistently declaring protectionist national regimes to be incompatible with EU law. Yesterday, Michel Barnier confirmed that the Commission would take its responsibilities in this respect so we now expect him to  urgently address the new complaints received and the infringement back-log, an area where the Commission has taken no action since 2008.”