COMECON MEDIA

New industry data from 2017 shows that EGBA members are leading the way in popular digital entertainment.

Brussels, Today – European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) members in 2017 had more than 12 million active customers, held licenses in 19 EU member states, processed 354 million online payments, contributed €325 million support to sports, and sustained 33,000 digital and high quality jobs in the EU across 14 member states, according to new 2017 data released today by the industry group.

“Europe’s online gambling sector is a growing and popular form of digital entertainment - but with this growth comes responsibility to ensure that people are kept safe while playing on online gambling websites. This new data shows EGBA members are at the forefront of the sector’s development, interacting with millions of customers and processing nearly a million payment transactions each day.” – Maarten Haijer, Secretary General, EGBA.

EU-28 Online GamblingKey figures 2017LicensingEGBA companies…

The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the acquisition of joint control of the whole of Skoobe GmbH by Klio GmbH, Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH & Co. KG ("Holtzbrinck"), Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH ("Random House") and Arvato CRM Solutions GmbH ("Arvato"), all of Germany. Skoobe offers the temporary rental of e-books over its online platform www.skoobe.de and via its own application. Klio is active as a book retailer. Holtzbrinck is an international media company that is active in trade-book publishing, education and science, newspapers and magazines as well as electronic media and services. Random House is a publishing house of Bertelsmann SE & Co KGaA ("Bertelsmann") active in the area of fictional and non-fictional books, books for children and adolescents, audio and e-books. Arvato is an international service company of Bertelsmann offering various technical services. Bertelsmann is an international me…

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06/11/2018 
Press contacts Katharina RettigPress officer +32 2 281 55 05 +32 473 52 75 49
Today we can watch our favourite programmes anytime, anywhere. New times call for new audiovisual rules, to protect children and consumers.

As a result of updates by the EU to its rules for audiovisual media services, traditional television and new services such as on-demand broadcasting will compete on a level playing field. Video sharing platforms will also for the first time be subject to rules ensuring that viewers, and in particular minors, will be better protected from violent or harmful content or hate speech.

The new rules also aim to increase cultural diversity and promote European content by introducing a quota of at least 30% of European content in the catalogue of providers of on-demand audiovisual media services.

The Council adopted the new directive on 6 November. This is the final step in the legislative process.

The new directive modifies an existing directive on the provision of au…

Source: EU Council

06/11/2018 | 11:45

On 6 November 2018, the Council adopted a directive allowing alignment of VAT rules for electronic and physical publications. From now on, member states will be able to apply reduced, super-reduced or zero VAT rates also to electronic publications.

The adoption of the e-publication directive follows the political agreement reached by the Council on 2 October. It opens up the possibility for member states to implement reduced VAT rates in their national law if they wish to do so.

Under the current VAT rules (directive 2006/112/EC), electronically supplied services are taxed at the standard VAT rate, i.e. minimum 15%, whereas publications on a physical support may benefit from non-standard rates.

For physical publications – books, newspapers and periodicals – member states currently have the option of applying a ‘reduced’ VAT rate, i.e. minimum 5%. Some have been authorised to apply ‘super-reduced’ VAT rates (below 5%) or ‘zero’ rates (which involve VAT …