EU Meets for Regulation Discussion

In the beginning of December, the EU online casino regulations were discussed in a meeting, the reports say that final decisions are being put to a hault. There have been many different suggestions, especially from the current holder of the European Union presidency, France. The country of France has suggested that there be a bloc-wide policy for online casino regulation. This suggestion ignited a debate between 27 of the EU trade ministers. The goal for the meeting was for the ministers to find a common ground and therefore eliminating the state owned online casino monopolies. Typically online casino meetings are held in a national level, but due to cross-border gambling the European Union wants to find a common ground.

Charlie McCreevy, the EU International Market Commissioner said that he had not decided to propose a plan to unite the nation’s rules in online casino gaming regulations because no consensus exists to support the suggestions. The reports from the meeting say that their issues are sensitive and are tax issues for every country. Online casinos are fighting with their respective countries in order to operate their business as they please. Two countries that strongly opposed that proposal were Malta and Britain. The next country to take over the presidency of the European Union will be the Czech Republic and they are seeing no signs to an end of the online casino regulation discussions. They do not have the support of Britain and Malta but they will continue the debate in order to find an area which they can all be satisfied with.