During the plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels (08-11 March 2021). Opening statements by Anna CAVAZZINI (Greens/EFA, DE), Author and by Johannes HAHN, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration (This transcription speech is the result of an automatic process. Check against delivery).

digital agenda (T)

Brussels

digital single market (T)

statement

debate

plenary session

HAHN, Johannes (AT, EC)

CAVAZZINI, Anna (Greens/EFA, DE)

Evaluation of the Geo-blocking Regulation: opening statements by Anna CAVAZZINI (Greens/EFA, DE), Author and by Johannes HAHN, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration

SOUNDBITE (English), Anna CAVAZZINI (Greens/EFA, DE), President, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues. Imagine you live in the Czech Republic and you want to buy, say, a t shirt on an online Italian marketplace, but you always get redirected to a tech shop or imagine you want to buy one to pay for this T-shirt online. But your credit cards gets again and again refused simply because it has been issued in another country. Or finally, imagine that you want to type in your address of delivery, your home address, but it is impossible because you live at the other side of the border.

SOUNDBITE (English), Anna CAVAZZINI (Greens/EFA, DE), These are examples for unjustified geo blocking and these are examples for discrimination based on your nationality or your place of residence. And I would say this discrimination has no place in the EU internal market that geo blocking regulation of 2018 aims at fighting this discrimination. And this is good. Now, we as consumers should be able to compare the availability and the prices of services and goods sold across the internal market. Now, we as consumers should have the possibility to buy goods and services at the same conditions all over the internal market.

SOUNDBITE (English), Anna CAVAZZINI (Greens/EFA, DE), So coming back to the examples, if we book a ticket for a French museum on the French website, irrelevant of where we are, we shop under the same conditions online as if we were in France. So that geo blocking regulation aims at eliminating discrimination, at preventing the referral to other websites without our consent, at making digital content available all over the EU. In short, at giving all consumers the same rights.

SOUNDBITE (English), Anna CAVAZZINI (Greens/EFA, DE), By this, the geo blocking regulation can be a very important cornerstone of the digital single market of enhancing cross-border sales and of overcoming geographical restrictions. So only one and a half years after it entered into force, the commission evaluated its implementation. And this is why we are here today. The evaluation shows some positive effects, for example, blocking access to websites or rerouting consumers to other websites. This has decreased massively, but it also shows that there is a lack of enforcement by most member states.

SOUNDBITE (English), Anna CAVAZZINI (Greens/EFA, DE), So member states really have to step up their efforts in fighting unjustified geo blocking. And the report shows also that often enough goods are not offered online across borders. So the commission's report also considers the possible extension of the scope of the geo blocking regulation, including with regard to copyright protected content. And this is highly relevant for consumers because streaming services so far have been excluded after blocking regulation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Anna CAVAZZINI (Greens/EFA, DE), As we probably all know when we are trying to watch something in a different member state, we as the committee expect national authorities and the commission to work together in the framework of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network to prevent any discrimination between EU consumers and to ensure adequate and effective implementation of the geo blocking regulation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Anna CAVAZZINI (Greens/EFA, DE), And we, as the IMCO Committee, will support efforts to deepen the digital single market by maintaining high standards on the internal market without barriers or frictions for consumers. I look forward to the commission's further explanations and actions in this field. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (English), Johannes HAHN, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, Honourable members, I would like to thank the IMCO committee for this question and in line with the conclusions of the first report of the geo blocking regulation. I am happy to provide the following additional elements following the structure of the parliament's questions with regard to enforcement. The Commission fully shares Parliament's view on the importance of ensuring the effective enforcement of the current year blocking goals for this reason.

SOUNDBITE (English), Johannes HAHN, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, The Commission is also fully engaged in cooperating with the competent national authorities to ensure appropriate enforcement of the regulation, including within the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network. In this regard, it plans, first of all, to steer and monitor the corporation as regards geo blocking related aspects of the coordinated enforcement activities of the CPC network. This adds to ad hoc discussions within the CPC network and guidance on issues raised as regards the coordinated enforcement and investigation cases.

SOUNDBITE (English), Johannes HAHN, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, Moreover, in order to facilitate enforcement but also compliance, the commission will provide additional guidance within the context of the planned update of the Service Directive Handbook, as well as in updating the clarifications on specific implementation questions on the basis of the issues discussed within the CPC network. With regard to the cross-border delivery. As mentioned in the parliamentary question, it remains a business choice of the data to provide cross-border delivery or not.

SOUNDBITE (English), Johannes HAHN, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, Nevertheless, artificial segmentation of markets by traders preventing access without any objective justification should be avoided. The commission would like to stress that the geo blocking regulation is a part of a wider range of EU measures to facilitate the active engagement of traders cross-border. Moreover, the pandemic has triggered significant changes in the evolution of e-commerce. The Commission will therefore closely monitor the implementation and first effects of such complementary measures, as well as the evolution of cross-border e-commerce and report its findings in the context of another stocktaking exercise in the regulation in 2022.

SOUNDBITE (English), Johannes HAHN, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, With regard to the other visual content, the commission will engage with stakeholders in a dialogue to identify how to foster better circulation of such content across the union, as indicated in the recent Media and Audiovisual Action Plan. The objective of the dialogue is to identify concrete steps to improve the access to and availability of audiovisual content across borders in the union. The dialogue will gather representatives from the other audiovisual industry, consumer organisations and other interested parties, such as national film funds. It will be launched in the first half of this year.

SOUNDBITE (English), Johannes HAHN, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, In practice, the dialogue could help define specific targets to be reached to improve the access to and availability of audiovisual works across the union, and to identify concrete actions that could be taken to achieve those targets. The Commission expects the industry, producers, distributors, broadcasters, online services and other interested parties to engage constructively in the dialogue and to commit to take action.

SOUNDBITE (English), Johannes HAHN, European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, The Commission will monitor the progress in the achievement of the specific targets in cooperation with the audiovisual sector. The Commission will look in particular at any improvements achieved in terms of wider circulation of audiovisual works and consumers' access to a variety of audiovisual content. The Commission will take stock of the progress achieved by the end of 2022 and decide on the Follow-Up Access assessing various options, including legislative intervention.