The gambling policies of the EU and the influences upon the Member States

― focusing on the freedom to provide services and the freedom of establishment ―

Abstract

　Since the founding the EU has aimed to achieve economic progress by free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. Services are crucial to EU economy.
　Gambling was originally regulated inside the Member States （MS） and it was not until 21st century did remote gambling begin to flourish. The EU Court of Justice （ECJ） has admitted lotteries and online gambling as services, observing the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services.
　Germany has been governed federally and the federal constitutional court has given a sentence in 1970 that the casino law was the one of public security and the German state governments （States） had the right of casino licensing. Since then the German gambling has been regulated mainly by the States. In 2004 Interstate Lottery Treaty gave the States the monopoly of lottery and sports betting. EU commission declares that there is no sector-specific EU legislation for gambling and ECJ has confirmed that gambling is an economic activity where restrictions imposed need to comply with the internal market rules. According to the 2010 ECJ decision the States had to revise Interstate Gambling Treaty in line with EU laws, which means the decision banned enforcement of sports betting regulations and demanded revised Interstate Gambling Treaty. But the clauses of the Treaty to be revised aren’t always clear and operators are inclined to understand the decision wider than the States and could try to get favorable Commission procedures or ECJ decisions, which will make the German judicial situation unstable.
　ECJ delivers preliminary rulings and EU commission makes policies but the negative health and social impacts must be removed by MS. European Parliament resolution of 2012 should be adopted because it has considered the principle of subsidiarity that without harmonization it is MS to determine according to its own scale of values, what is required to protect the interests in question. Article 35 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights establishes EU’s obligation to protect human health and TFEU Article 169 obliges the EU to ensure a high level of consumer protection. Human health, consumer protection, anti-money laundering and sports integrity cannot be achieved only by the internal market rules. The resolutions of European Parliament should get to be respected with the policies of EU Commission and the ECJ decisions, which could give better agreement between the EU and MS.