Brussels, 25/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission's action plan on online gaming was presented by Michel Barnier on Tuesday 23 October. It raised certain amount of criticism, particularly from French MEP, Nora Berra (EPP), who would have preferred a European directive on the subject. In a press release, the MEP emphasised that, “operators would have liked a directive to clarify Community law on this issue. Jurisprudence is not enough to provide a sufficient framework for the sector and define what law is applicable”. Berra stressed that, “the goal was not to legalise all sorts of online gaming in member states, sovereignty applies in this field, but on the contrary, there was a possibility of defining clear limits for traditional monopolies and new operators to put a stop to the many ongoing infringement procedures”.
The MEP also criticised the fact that recognition of law on gaming is “widely lacking” from this action plan. She explained that, “sport provides 15 million direct or indirect jobs in Europe and added value of €407 billion. Maintaining its integrity has therefore become a real economic and social challenge. In this perspective, European level recognition of the legal and commercial link between gaming operators and organisers of sports events, which is the case in France, would have appeared to me to be a more judicious approach for sustaining the funding of amateur sport and all the different mechanisms used in the fight to preserve the integrity of sport”.
The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) welcomed the fact that the Commission had announced its intention to re-launch infringement procedures against national systems that are unfairly restrictive and contravene Community law. Nonetheless, it was unsure about the effectiveness of the measures planned and asked, “how the EC, through reliance on 'soft' rules rather than legislation, intends to deliver concrete results to stop the rapid emergence of '27 mini markets' in the EU and reverse - for a sector which is cross border by nature - the plethora of purely national licensing requirements”? (SP/transl.fl)