The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) says it is confident that a recent ruling regarding European gambling law will help the European Commission improve its oversight of draft regulations.
The trade association said the Commission has not been consistently scrutinising draft regulation changes through the Technical Regulation Information System (TRIS) procedure.
The EGBA said the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has “consistently upheld” that draft national gambling regulations which constitute "technical regulations" under EU law must be notified to the European Commission through the TRIS procedure.
In a recent ruling, the CJEU said failure to follow that process makes such regulatory provisions unenforceable against gambling operators.
The EGBA said that the lack of proper oversight will result in “regulatory failure and market uncertainty that benefits neither regulators, operators nor consumers.”
EGBA secretary general, Maarten Haijer, said: “Proper notification of draft gambling regulations to the European Commission is essential for good policy making and to allow for any proposed changes to national gambling frameworks to be scrutinised for their compatibility with EU law.
“The TRIS notification procedure facilitates transparency and allows for potential EU law compatibility issues to be identified before national regulations take effect.
“An effective TRIS procedure also relies on the European Commission to actively scrutinise all incoming notifications, which it has not been doing consistently in recent years.
“We’re confident, however, that the new Commission’s emphasis on the enforcement of EU law will lead to it stepping up its efforts to ensure draft national gambling laws are adequately scrutinised for their compatibility with EU law.”
