Brussels, 12/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - Meeting for its AGM in Istanbul, Turkey, on Thursday 11 June, the European association of national lotteries, (European Lotteries), issued a resolution stressing the importance of subsidiarity, sustainability, integrity, prudence and solidarity. It calls for subsidiarity to remain the foundation of regulations governing betting and gambling. Putting public order and public health objectives above purely business and financial interests, European Lotteries calls for honesty and integrity in the sports competitions upon which people place bets, and greater efforts to combat organised crime, tax evasion and money laundering. It argues that the specific nature of the lotteries business should encourage regulators to take a prudent approach and avoid deregulating gambling. Regulators should also avoid uncontrolled expansion of online gambling. Aware that new communication technology is hugely altering the behaviour of gamblers, national lotteries say that cross-border cooperation is required to respond effectively to the problems posed by the internet and that legal security for national legislation can only be obtained at EU level.
Launched by the French Presidency of the EU in the second half of last year, the Council's work on gambling has not been pursued by national experts under the Czech Presidency (see EUROPE 9794). A European conference will, however, take place in Prague on Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 June 2009 on gambling in the Common Market and striking a balance between the interests of the state and the interests of business, organised in cooperation with the Academy of European Law. Sweden, which will take over from the Czech Republic at the helm of the EU for the second half of 2009, is determined to ensure the Council's work is taken up again from where it left off in December 2008. (M.B./transl.fl)