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EU warns Greece and the Netherlands over gambling restrictions
BRUSSELS: The European Commission on Thursday gave Greece and the Netherlands a final warning before court action over restrictions in their gambling markets, the latest move in a push by Brussels to bolster competition.
The countries have two months to reply. Failure to do so or a response deemed inadequate could mean they face the European Union's top court, the European Court of Justice.
The agency objects to Greek restrictions on gambling and advertising, and Dutch restraints on sports betting, applied to foreign competitors.
The EU internal market commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, is overseeing legal action against about 10 of the EU's 27 member states to crack down on national hurdles to competition from gambling companies based elsewhere in the bloc.
"If member states wish to ban gambling," McCreevy said, "well, then I won't cry at night about it. But they can't be discriminatory against legally authorized gambling companies from other member states."
Some EU states have said that curbs on competition are needed to cut addiction to gambling. But the commission said that, in the case of Greece and the Netherlands, the introduction of "new addictive games, intensive and increasing advertising and absence of concrete measures against gambling addiction contradicted that argument."
Opap, a company which bought a license in 2001 to be Greece's exclusive gambling service until 2020, "will defend its rights in every appropriate way," the chief executive, Christos Hadjiemmanouil, said.
Stanleybet International, a British gambling company, is trying to start operations in Greece and welcomed the decision. "Today's decision is another blow to member states who do not wish to play their part," said John Whittaker, the managing director. His company urged McCreevy to pursue actions against Denmark, Hungary and Finland and take them to the European Court of Justice. The European Gaming and Betting Association, or EGBA, said national gambling legislation that does not serve "any genuine consumer protection or public order interest has no future."
The EGBA said the warning from Brussels coincided with the Dutch government's plans to issue a three-year exclusive online gambling license to the state operator Holland Casino.
The Dutch government is also looking to force financial institutions to refuse payment transactions to and from EU-licensed online gambling and betting operators, the EGBA said.
The Dutch state lottery, De Lotto, said that there were no harmonized EU rules on sports betting and that the commission's decision had been prompted by pressure from primarily British-based online bookmakers.
"The European Commission seems to have set its sights on one big pan-European betting market," the De Lotto chief executive,Tjeerd Veenstra, said.
There was no support for creating a pan-EU gaming market and the Dutch system keeps social costs arising from addiction and crime under control, Veenstra said.
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