es de el en fr it pt

It is for the national court to identify the objectives actually pursued by such national legislation

By means of licensing agreements concluded in 2013, following a call for tender in 2011, companies were entrusted with the management of gambling activities using slot machines in Italy. That call for tender fixed the conditions for determining the commission payable to those licence holders.

In 2014, national legislation 1 reduced the State resources paid as commission to those licence holders for the year 2015. That law provides that the licence holders, in exercising the public functions entrusted to them, in addition to what is paid ordinarily to the State, will also pay, annually, the sum of €500 000 000, in proportion to the number of machines registered to each of them as at 31 December 2014. They are to distribute the remaining amounts, available for their fees and commission. In application of that legislation, the amounts due were settled accordingly and the levy was distributed among all operators in the gambling sector and no longer among licence holders alone.

The licence holders brought actions against the levy on the ground that it significantly affected their profit margin and was contrary to EU law.

The Consiglio di Stato (Council of State, Italy), court of final instance, referred the questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling, seeking to establish, first, whether the national legislation constitutes a restriction on the freedom of establishment or on the freedom to provide services guaranteed by Articles 49 and 56 TFEU and, second, whether that legislation is compatible with the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations.

In his Opinion delivered today, Advocate General Rantos considers that the Italian legislation is such as to constitute a restriction on the freedoms guaranteed by Articles 49 and 56 TFEU, given that the reduction of State resources made available to the licence holders, after the licences were granted, is such as to render the exercise of gambling activities less attractive for those licence holders. Next, the Advocate General proceeds to examine whether those restrictions may be justified by overriding reasons in the public interest.

The Advocate General observes that the legislation on gambling is one of the areas in which there are significant moral, religious and cultural differences between the Member States. For this reason, the Member States enjoy a wide discretion as regards choosing the level of consumer protection and the preservation of order in society. However, the restrictive measures that the Member States impose must be justified by overriding reasons in the public interest and must also comply with the principle of proportionality.