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Last
Wednesday a meeting of the 16 leaders
of the German
federal states was held in Berlin with a view to passing
legislation that would prohibit private operators from
working on German soil. During this meeting
no agreement on legislation to
ban internet gambling was reached.
As
announced beforehand,
the leader of the state of
Schleswig-Holstein, refused to sign the proposal while
the representatives of the 15 other states signed in a
‘circulation procedure’. No final draft resolution was
signed or agreed on. Also, as confirmed by the leader of
the state of Lower Saxony in a press conference, no
legislation passed by the leaders of the German states
would be promulgated until it is presented to the
European Commission to examine its applicability.
According to Munich-based law firm Hambach & Hambach,
Schleswig-Holstein had already decided unanimously and
instructed the prime minister (of Schleswig-Holstein)
not
to
agree to the
current draft, at least until the European Court of
Justice (ECJ) made its judgment in the Placanica case,
which is due in February or March 2007”.
The latter
case will rule on
whether EU
countries can outlaw operators licensed in another
member and will therefore
decide if European state
operators can retain their monopolies. The expectation
is that the ECJ will rule in favour of EU-licensed
operators where, rather than leaving the decision on
whether national monopoly provisions are infringing EU
law to national court(Gambelli), the matter would be
answered by the ECJ itself.
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