EUROMAT News Bulletin 25 November 2011

EU AFFAIRS

21/11/11 - During an exchange of views with the European Parliament’s Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, Michel Barnier, presented the Commission’s Work Programme for 2012. Commissioner Barnier announced that the programme will include a “Communication on online gambling in the Internal Market”, which will aim to identify (i) key challenges for the co-existence of national regulatory models and (ii) initiatives to be taken at national and EU level. The Commission considers that due to the nature of online gambling services and the international dimension of some of the key challenges, the EU is better placed than individual Members States to tackle some of these challenges.

21/11/11 - Following the publication of the European Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on the use of the Internal Market Information (IMI) system, the European Parliament’s Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) appointed MEP Bielan Adam (Poland, ECR) as Rapporteur for the dossier. The IMI aims to facilitate the exchange of information between competent authorities in the Member States and its potential use also in the gambling sector has been much debated by all EU  Institutions.   IMCO  will hold   a first exchange of views on the issue on 5 December 2011.