The free movement of services in Europe was a concept embraced in 1957 by the six founder members of the European Economic Community but, all these years later, freedom of services has not yet been achieved. In 2000 the European Commission described there being a ‘huge gap’ between the vision and the reality as experienced by EU citizens and EU service providers. In 2002 a Commission Report published a list of hundreds of disguised or discriminatory administrative obstacles or protectionist measures.

The Internal Market and Consumer Protection committee (IMCO) has now voted to exclude gambling services form the scope of the Services Directive. This is not necessarily the end of the matter as the European Parliament could decide not to confirm the vote next January. However, the European Betting Association (EBA) fears that the Parliament, by maintaining the legal status quo, could condone the breach of Internal Market rules. The EBA claims that State monopolies on gambling fail to address, in a responsible and sustainable manner, the issues of consumer protection, money laundering and criminal association.

The Services Directive was designed to create a market in services similar to the free market in goods, but has proved controversial. In March it was ordered to be amended after protests that it would undermine wages and standards for health and environmental considerations in Western Europe. Former Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, who originally proposed the Directive, has pointed out that gambling services are services under the EC Treaty and that the provision of cross-border gambling services is growing.

By refusing to tackle gambling services in the Directive, the EBA points out that Parliament is missing the opportunity to consider the real issues, such as “Which countries have introduced by law age limits to gambling? How much do State monopolies spend each year to advertise and promote their games, compared to the amounts spent on gambling prevention?” It concludes that there is no real justification for the European Parliament to continue to evade EU gambling legislation in the Services Directive. It appears that the dice may still be loaded in favour of strongly partisan state monopoly forces, however obsolete in the new gambling era. (E-11.25.05)

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