mr president i want to add my congratulations to commissioner barnier
commissioner this is not the easiest topic to start off in your career in the commission but i dare say that your predecessor mr mccreevy would not mind me saying that he enjoyed the odd flutter
he enjoyed race-going and obviously was a man to place a bet
clearly there are two schools of thought on this issue
however parliament's view is quite clear from its resolution of ten march two thousand and nine and i think it is worth quoting three lines from that resolution which states that member states have an interest and right to regulate and control their gambling markets
it also very clearly states that online gambling operators must comply with the legislation of member states in which they provide their service and that a pure internal market approach is not appropriate in this highly sensitive area
the problem for us as legislators and for member states is that the market is way ahead of us developments in this area have overtaken existing legislation and will continue to do so
whether we like it or not people enjoy gambling
personally i would rather buy shoes but others do other things for their kicks
i absolutely concur with those who have very clearly spoken about the problems of gambling whether online or otherwise
there are huge social issues involved where people who have an addiction go beyond what they should do
but remember also that member states promote lotteries and perhaps that is a legalised form of promoting a possible addiction
so there is no clarity on this issue but once again the problem for the european parliament for the eu in general is that there is no consistency across member states and yet our citizens are accessing services outside their own country and they want to do that
the green paper would be most welcome it is a big challenge for you to pull together the information on this issue
i think the problem is that there is a huge gap in information and knowledge and it is up to the commission to come forward with something to deal with that issue
