Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-11-Speech-4-047"
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"en.20100211.4.4-047"2
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"Mr President, I want to add my congratulations to Commissioner Barnier. Commissioner, this is not the easiest topic to start off in your career in the Commission but I dare say that your predecessor, Mr McCreevy, would not mind me saying that he enjoyed the odd flutter. He enjoyed race-going and obviously was a man to place a bet.
Clearly there are two schools of thought on this issue. However, Parliament’s view is quite clear from its resolution of 10 March 2009, and I think it is worth quoting three lines from that resolution, which states that ‘Member States have an interest and right to regulate and control their gambling markets’. It also very clearly states that ‘online gambling operators must comply with the legislation of Member States in which they provide their service’, and that ‘a pure internal market approach is not appropriate in this highly sensitive area’.
The problem for us as legislators, and for Member States, is that the market is way ahead of us: developments in this area have overtaken existing legislation and will continue to do so. Whether we like it or not, people enjoy gambling. Personally I would rather buy shoes, but others do other things for their kicks.
I absolutely concur with those who have very clearly spoken about the problems of gambling, whether online or otherwise. There are huge social issues involved where people who have an addiction go beyond what they should do. But remember also that Member States promote lotteries, and perhaps that is a legalised form of promoting a possible addiction.
So there is no clarity on this issue but, once again, the problem for the European Parliament, for the EU in general, is that there is no consistency across Member States, and yet our citizens are accessing services outside their own country, and they want to do that.
The green paper would be most welcome: it is a big challenge for you to pull together the information on this issue. I think the problem is that there is a huge gap in information and knowledge, and it is up to the Commission to come forward with something to deal with that issue."@en1
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