Daniel Dalton (ECR). – Madam President, I am concerned that these proposals misunderstand the digital world and the fact that it is consumer-driven. The geo-blocking proposal is ill-conceived and will drive small businesses off the internet. But I am very concerned about the proposals to make on-demand platforms meet a 20% European quota. This shows a lack of confidence in the European industry, which is booming, especially as Netflix and Amazon already meet the 20% quota. The proposal does not understand the nature of on-demand services: people watch what they want, when they want, and if the content is not good, they will not watch it. Now there will be a push to produce low-quality European content just to meet the quota, and this will undermine the industry and consumers.

There is also a question about what is European content in a globalised world? Game of Thrones is filmed mostly in Europe. Is it European? A UFC fight in Las Vegas featuring Conor McGregor, for example, is that European content? What about an app like Major League Baseball? Are Europeans who want to watch the New York Yankees going to have to be forced to watch the Essex Arrows instead? What about Crunchyroll, that specialises in Japanese anime? Or Core TV, streaming South Korean content? Are they all expected to have European content?