Pressure mounts on German licensing procedure
German minister becomes first senior politician to publicly admit Interstate Treaty is not working
Germany’s standstill on gambling regulation could be broken before the end of the year after a German minister publicly criticised the situation ahead of an expected ECJ opinion in September.
The ECJ launched an investigation into the process following a referral from a Bavarian judge into the legality of the Interstate Treaty on Gambling, a move which one expert said may force political change in the country.
“The court posed several questions to the ECJ in regards to the licensing procedure,” Martin Arendts, a leading German gaming lawyer, told eGaming Review.
“We expect an opinion from the advocate general which will be published on 17 September, and then the court will make a ruling probably this year.
“If the Court of Justice says the treaty is against EU law the political pressure would be high enough that the state will have the change the law,” he added.
News of the investigation comes after the minister of the interior and sport for the German state of Hesse, Peter Beuth, wrote an article for German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung yesterday in which he criticised the licensing process.
Beuth admitted current legislation was incapable of achieving its objectives, describing the situation as a “dead end” and calling on German states to change the law.
The admission is a major blow for the regulators, coming from a senior minister from the department responsible for issuing the licences.
Around 80 operators have applied for one of the 20 licences currently available in Germany. Beuth criticised the arbitrary decision to limit the number of licences issued, and the ECJ is likely to take a similarly dim view of the ruling.
A series of German court rulings in recent months have slammed the licensing process, criticising it for violating existing laws, not being transparent enough and restricting operators’ freedom to provide services.