National gambling policies and the containment of the EU’s politico-legal influence

Abstract

Aims: Research has shown that the EU's politico-legal influence over member states is contained through two political strategies: contained compliance and anticipatory obedience. Previous studies on gambling policies in the EU have quite uncritically presumed that the EU is capable of inducing changes, or even forcing changes, in national gambling policies. In this article, the objective was to investigate whether member states have adopted the two strategies allowing a containment of the EU's influence on their national gambling policies. Design: The politico-legal influence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Commission on national gambling policy is analysed in the case of Finnish monopoly-based gambling policy. The analysis is based on case law and policy documents. Results: The results indicate that Finland has adopted both anticipatory obedience and contained compliance when striving to safeguard its gambling monopoly system. Contained compliance was adopted during the early period of Finland's accession (1995-2001). Anticipatory obedience was exercised between the years 2004 and 2013, a period characterised by several critical legal cases and the infringement procedure commenced by the European Commission against Finland. During the third period (2014-2017), when the merger of three monopoly operators into a single state-owned company was on the agenda, neither strategy was adopted, indicating little EU influence (despite public justifications of the same). Conclusion: The EU's opportunities to induce changes in the gambling policies of member states should not be overemphasised because member states are able to contain the EU's politico-legal influence. Future analyses of national gambling policies in the EU would benefit from taking the interaction between member states and the EU into account.

Parliamentary Debates on Gambling Policies as Political Action

“…The background to this was the infringement process initiated by the European commission against Finland. However, a shift seems to have taken place after the infringement process ended 30 in 2013 (Selin, 2019). In tension with the harm-based justifications of the monopoly, several MPs speaking from an institutional position (presenters of either bills or committee reports) started to highlight the importance of the revenue to society in the debates on bills HE 132/2016 and HE 213/2018.…”

“…Other European countries, including Sweden who previously also had a regulatory framework quite similar to those in Finland and Norway, typically have regulatory frameworks where licenses are issued for some forms of gambling while other forms of gambling (e.g., national lotteries) are operated by monopolies (Egerer et al, 2018). Following the European Union (EU) law, Finland justifies the regulatory framework, an exception to the general rule of free trade in the EU, by the prevention and reduction of gambling harm (Selin, 2019). However, paradoxically since accession of Finland to the EU in 1995, gambling revenue has become a more and more important source of funding for thousands of civil society organizations as well as the state itself (Selin et al, 2019).…”

Moving Prevention of Gambling Harm Upstream: Opportunities in Social Policy and Research

“…Some countries run state owned enterprises that control most forms of gambling, such as Finland, while other countries' regulation gives more room to private companies, such as Spain. The European Commission provides some general guidelines for the protection of gambling consumers' rights, but does not dictate how these should be implemented in each member state's legislation (Selin, 2019;European Commission, 2021). The fragmentation of legal frameworks in two of the most influential markets in the globe contributes to reinforce discrepancies and deepens path dependency in gambling policies (Paldam, 2008).…”

The Political Analyst's Field Guide to Finland

“…The official justification for the state gambling monopoly is the assumed ability of a monopoly system to control gambling-related harm. Even if the system's ability to provide resources for the third sector, which partly supplements the welfare system, is often used as justification in public discussions 218 , it is not cited as justification in official documents 219,220 . On closer inspection, another paradox emerges: very few people seem to think that the TS work should be funded by resources that are largely drawn from the pockets of people suffering from gambling problems 221 .…”