Stenograma dezbaterilor

Joi, 11 martie 2021 - Bruxelles

16. Evaluarea Regulamentului privind geoblocarea (dezbatere)

  Der Präsident. – Als nächster Punkt der Tagesordnung folgt die Aussprache über die Anfrage zur mündlichen Beantwortung an die Kommission über die Bewertung der Geoblocking-Verordnung von Anna Cavazzini im Namen des Ausschusses für Binnenmarkt und Verbraucherschutz (O-000010/2021 – B9-0008/21) (2021/2546(RSP)).

  Anna Cavazzini, author. – Mr President, I would say to the Commissioner, 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 Czech shop. Or imagine you want to pay for this T-shirt online, but your credit cards get refused again and again, 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.

These are examples of unjustified geo—blocking and these are examples for discrimination based on your nationality or your place of residence. I would say this discrimination has no place in the EU internal market. The Geo—blocking Regulation of 2018 aims at fighting this discrimination. 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 on the same conditions all over the internal market.

Coming back to the examples. If we book a ticket for a French museum on a French website, irrelevant of where we are, we shop under the same conditions online as if we were in France. So the 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. 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 has evaluated its implementation. 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 has decreased massively. But it also shows that there is a lack of enforcement by most Member States. So Member States really have to step up their efforts in fighting unjustified geo—blocking.

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. This is highly relevant for consumers because streaming services so far have been excluded from the Geo—blocking Regulation, as we probably all know when we are trying to watch something in a different Member State.

We as the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) 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.

We as the IMCO Committee will support efforts to deepen the digital single market while 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.

(Applause)

  Johannes Hahn, Member of the Commission. – Mr President, honourable Members, I would like to thank the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) for this question. 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 the Parliament’s view on the importance of ensuring the effective enforcement of the current geo—blocking rules. For this reason, 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 (CPC) network.

In this regard, it plans, first of all, to steer and monitor the cooperation 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. 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 trader to provide cross—border delivery or not. 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.

With regard to the audio—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 audio—visual action plan, the objective of the dialogue is to identify concrete steps to improve the access to and availability of audio—visual content across borders in the Union. The dialogue will gather representatives from the audio—visual industry, consumer organisations and other interested parties, such as national film funds. It will be launched in the first half of this year. In practice, the dialogue could help define specific targets to be reached to improve the access to and availability of audio—visual 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. The Commission will monitor the progress in the achievement of the specific targets in cooperation with the audio—visual sector. The Commission will look in particular at any improvements achieved in terms of wider circulation of audio—visual works and consumers’ access to a variety of audio—visual content. The Commission will take stock of the progress achieved by the end of 2022 and decide on the follow—up, assessing various options, including legislative interventions.

  Róża Thun und Hohenstein, on behalf of the PPE Group. – Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner very much. Yes, geo-blocking: the situation is improving but it’s still a very serious problem for many Europeans, and as Anna mentioned, especially the Digital Single Market needs improvement. I will give you a concrete example.

Recently, I wanted to see a film that was available on a Portuguese video-on-demand platform financed from the EU funds. But I was not able to watch it because I was geo-blocked. The number of those who want to access digital content cross-border grows very rapidly, and half of them fail. So it means that millions of citizens in the European Union are hindered from benefits which the Digital Single Market should bring them. And what about those who belong to linguistic minorities and who are deprived of access to culture in their own language?

We like to paraphrase the famous sentence of Massimo d’Azeglio and use it in the European context: we made a European Union; now we need Europeans.

Commissioner, this goal will not be achieved in a Union that passively watches how the freedom of media is being destroyed in some of our Member States, how geo-blocking divides us along the internal borders of the European Union. And the Commission talks very beautifully. It’s time to act, Commissioner. We impatiently expect positive, tangible, concrete results.

  Massimiliano Smeriglio, a nome del gruppo S&D. – Signor Presidente, onorevoli colleghi, l'allargamento del geoblocking è giusto, ma se si ampliasse il campo di applicazione di questo regolamento ai servizi audiovisivi sarebbe molto più difficile continuare a finanziare la creazione di questi servizi e contenuti, con pesanti conseguenze per l'occupazione in questo comparto, così importante in molti paesi europei.

Se venisse meno il principio di territorialità avremmo più concentrazione dell'offerta in pochi attori dominanti, a scapito di offerte alternative e indipendenti e a danno del pluralismo e della diversità culturale.

Nella relazione di valutazione della Commissione si rileva che ciò non comporterebbe vantaggi per i consumatori, che già beneficiano di un accesso transfrontaliero ai contenuti culturali grazie al regolamento sulla portabilità, che non mette in discussione il principio di territorialità. Piuttosto ampliamo l'offerta di contenuti culturali transfrontalieri e rafforziamo la diffusione delle opere e le coproduzioni con il programma MEDIA.

Il problema più grave oggi è l'aumento dell'utilizzo delle grandi piattaforme online a fronte di chiusure di cinema e spazi culturali, che stanno mettendo a dura prova gli autori, le imprese e il lavoro dell'intero settore.

  Dita Charanzová, on behalf of the Renew Group. – Mr President, I can only share my dismay at the result of your review: 10% blocked at registration, 10% at payment and 50% blocked by the refusal to deliver cross—border. I personally continue to find it outrageous that multinationals are refusing to deliver, often the same product from the same warehouse, depending on whether a consumer is using one version of a website or another. This artificial national market segmentation must stop.

As for copyright—protected content, we can only truly end geo-blocking if this is included. I firmly believe that the regulation should be extended to copyright—protected content.

Mr Commissioner, we are not all treated as equals. It is not right that a German viewer has access to 43% of all audiovisual content, while a Greek has access to only 1%. There is something very wrong with the audiovisual industry and the way we allow it to work. If the industry will not urgently agree to voluntarily lift these barriers, it’s time for us to do so in law. I hope the Commission will make this clear and be prepared to act before this term is up.

  Joachim Kuhs, im Namen der ID-Fraktion. – Herr Präsident, Herr Kommissar, meine Damen und Herren! Offensichtlich ist die Regulierung für die Geoblockade nicht sehr schmeichelhaft, fällt die Evaluation nicht sehr schmeichelhaft für Sie aus.

Und die Beispiele sind genug gezeigt worden, wo die Probleme liegen. Offensichtlich sind die drei Ausnahmen nicht ausreichend, die die Regulierung anbietet. Und die Frage stellt sich: Brauchen wir vielleicht etwas ganz anderes? Es darf nicht sein, dass ein freies Internet durch solche Regulierungen blockiert wird. Wir brauchen ein freies Internet, wo auch keine Zensur stattfindet. Denn die Gefahr, dass so etwas passiert, ist doch sehr groß, wenn solche Regeln vorhanden sind.

Deshalb, bitte, lieber Herr Kommissar, machen Sie das Unmögliche möglich und schenken Sie den Unionsbürgern ein freies Internet.

  Marcel Kolaja, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, I need to say that I am disappointed to hear that nothing will really happen by the end of 2022.

The debate on abolishing geo-blocking has been ongoing in this Parliament for years. The outcome of the regulation adopted in 2018 is far from what citizens hoped for, because the content restricted by the copyright monopoly was excluded from the scope. And the studies that the Commission and the Parliament conducted prove that there has been a growing demand for cross–border access to audiovisual content.

As you can hear not only from me, there is a strong support from Members of the European Parliament to abolish geo–blocking. The market self–regulation failed, and European citizens are still deprived of equal access to content. Therefore, I expect the Commission to speed up their effort to tie up the loose ends and once again get closer to finalising a proper digital single market. And I stress the word ‘single’.

  Kosma Złotowski, w imieniu grupy ECR. – Panie Przewodniczący! Panie Komisarzu! Blokowanie geograficzne wciąż jest jedną z największych barier dla rozwoju jednolitego rynku. Opóźnienia we wdrażaniu rozporządzenia z 2018 r. mają określone negatywne skutki gospodarcze.

Ostatnie miesiące i pandemia koronawirusa przeniosły naszą aktywność, także zakupy, w jeszcze większym stopniu do internetu. To otwiera nowe możliwości dla wielu małych i średnich firm, które mogą dotrzeć ze swoją ofertą do klientów w innych państwach, a konsumentom stwarza nowe okazje do szukania korzystnych ofert. Trudno o lepsze warunki dla budowania jednolitego rynku cyfrowego.

Skuteczne usuwanie barier w transgranicznym dostępie do usług i towarów powinno być jednym z najważniejszych elementów naszej strategii wychodzenia z kryzysu. Wszyscy oczekujemy, że Komisja wykaże się większą skutecznością w likwidacji zbędnej biurokracji utrudniającej prowadzenie handlu elektronicznego.

  Emmanuel Maurel, au nom du groupe The Left. – Monsieur le Président, en vertu du règlement sur le blocage géographique de 2018, les boutiques et services en ligne sont dans l’obligation d’offrir les mêmes services à un tarif identique à l’ensemble des consommateurs européens.

À ce jour, ce règlement ne s’applique ni aux services audiovisuels, ni aux services qui donnent accès à des œuvres protégées par les droits d’auteur, je pense aux livres numériques, à la musique, aux jeux vidéo et aux films. Mais j’entends que cette liste d’exemptions doit faire l’objet d’un réexamen, alors je voudrais vous parler du secteur du livre parce qu’une telle extension au secteur du livre mettrait en danger les librairies, les maisons d’édition et renforcerait encore plus la situation de quasi-monopole des acteurs comme Amazon.

En outre, elle rendrait impossible l’application de la loi sur le prix unique du livre, qui existe dans des pays comme la France: c’est une mesure qui a permis de maintenir une importante pluralité éditoriale de diffusion. Ce serait la même chose pour la musique ou pour les films et c’est la raison pour laquelle je pense qu’il faut continuer de protéger les droits d’auteurs pour conserver la diversité culturelle et soutenir les créateurs.

Ne bradons pas la culture au profit des grandes plateformes numériques.

  Dorien Rookmaker (NI). – Mr President, manufacturers and producers in general try to make a profit. Sometime they revert to geo—blocking, the segmentation of markets. This is not only to increase profits but also to protect intellectual property or to produce consumer goods of less quality at a lower price for consumers with less money to spend.

I wonder if the regulation on banning geo—blocking is not a fine example of the useless regulation of the EU market. Why? It is unclear if geo—blocking is really a problem. Consumers and producers in different Member States tell me it is a non—issue as in a market that is characterised by over—capacity, the buyers and not the suppliers have the upper hand. Geo—blocking can be, and often is, a good thing. Let us not spend more energy on this non—issue with no priority.

  Adriana Maldonado López (S&D). – Señor presidente, señor comisario, querría poner en valor, en primer lugar, el Reglamento adoptado en el año 2008 y, en segundo lugar, esta revisión que pidió el Parlamento en su momento y que acaba de llegar a nuestras manos, pero hay dos aspectos de esta evaluación que me preocupan: en primer lugar, me preocupa la implementación que se está haciendo en los Estados miembros, creo que tenemos que trabajar seriamente para que esta implementación sea mucho más estricta; pero, sobre todo, se hace un análisis exhaustivo del sector audiovisual que quiero poner en valor, y quiero leer literalmente una frase que aparece en la página 12 de la evaluación: «El 9 % de los usuarios de internet han intentado acceder a contenido audiovisual más allá de las fronteras».

Esto nos demuestra un interés conjunto de los ciudadanos europeos y de los consumidores europeos por un sector. Por lo tanto, lo que tenemos que hacer, nuestra prioridad máxima como instituciones europeas, es trabajar por que todos los Estados miembros implementen exactamente el Reglamento como está; por lo tanto, lo que tenemos que hacer es trabajar por que todo el mundo cumpla lo que está aprobado y lo que está acordado.

  Sandro Gozi (Renew). – Monsieur le Président, impossible de parler du blocage géographique sans mentionner le contexte actuel. Le secteur audiovisuel européen est aujourd’hui très impacté par l’arrivée des nouvelles plateformes en ligne diffusant des contenus de pays tiers qui bénéficient d’un important soutien financier qui n’ont pas leur équivalent en Europe.

La pandémie a mis ces secteurs encore plus en danger. On parle de milliers de professionnels, des auteurs, des producteurs qui œuvrent au quotidien pour la création européenne. Ce dont nous avons besoin, c’est avant tout d’une mise en œuvre rapide et efficace du règlement dans tous les États membres et ensuite des mesures d’incitation pour faciliter le commerce transfrontalier, améliorer les capacités de production, soutenir les coproductions transfrontalières par des financements européens et répondre aux attentes des consommateurs. En tenant compte de ces priorités, nous devons en discuter avec toutes les parties prenantes, de ce qui a fonctionné, des obstacles encore existants et s’ils sont vraiment justifiés. Je salue l’action de la Commission qui est engagée dans ce dialogue et surtout, chers collègues, soyons pragmatiques.

  Marc Angel (S&D). – Mr President, when we speak about geo—blocking and territorial supply constraints, we must not forget that smaller Member States are much more vulnerable. Taking my country, Luxembourg, as an example, consumers are too often penalised when ordering abroad because many online vendors do not deliver to the Grand Duchy. At the same time, Luxembourg companies are often obliged to go through specific distributors for their supplies, incurring greater costs.

I welcome the Commission’s first short—term review of the Geo—blocking Regulation, but I also call on the Commission to continue actively monitoring and removing unjustified geo—blocking and other restrictions on cross—border online sales.

I know that further evaluation of the Regulation is expected, and I’m convinced that the Commission should consider appropriate measures, concrete actions, among others, for full implementation by Member States, for better enforcement in every Member State, for better cooperation among the competent authorities and for non—discriminatory customer access to offers in the single market.

  Vlad-Marius Botoş (Renew). – Mr President, we are talking about digitalisation and the European single market, which is one of the European Union’s greatest strengths. Our strong position in the international market comes from the capacity to provide a broad market with laws as harmonised as possible with around 450 million consumers.

That is why it is particularly important to remove the practice of geo—blocking as soon as possible. We want the same service and the same access to the single market for all Europeans. Limiting access not only limits the market, but also the rights that we Europeans have as consumers.

The geo—blocking of services and products offered on the online market must stop and the obstacles, even those coming from cross-border deliveries, must be removed. Open cooperation with all Member States is the only solution to reach the single market that we want and to ensure the rights that all consumers should have, no matter the geographical area they are located in.

  Andreas Schieder (S&D). – Herr Präsident, Herr Kommissar! 2008 ist die Geoblocking-Verordnung in Kraft getreten, aber trotzdem bestehen noch immer große Hindernisse.

Bei Online-Diensten scheitern viele Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten entweder am Wohnort oder am Zahlungsort oder an Umleitungen im Registrierungsprozess. Diese künstlichen Grenzen, die auch von Firmen absichtlich verwendet werden, sind hier sehr schädlich. Streamingdienste sind überhaupt ausgenommen, aber gerade jetzt besonders beliebt, und häufig wird hier geblockt.

Bei allem Verständnis für die Sensibilität des Themas und bei allem Verständnis, dass es hier auch um Urheberrecht und andere Fragen geht, es braucht eine Lösung. Es braucht ein Ende dieser unfairen Hindernisse, die durch Geoblocking passieren. Und zwar nicht nur im Online-Handel, sondern auch bei den audiovisuellen Diensten, bei Videos und bei Gaming. Und das rasch.

  Johannes Hahn, Member of the Commission. – Mr President, honourable Members, thank you for this very useful exchange. The Commission shares Parliament’s view on the importance of ensuring the effective enforcement of the current geo—blocking rules. We will closely monitor developments and foster dialogue with the industry to identify concrete steps for audiovisual content.

We have made a very thorough and serious effort to evaluate the first months of implementation and the need to extend the Geo—blocking Regulation (GBR) and have taken the European Parliament and Council’s concerns raised during the negotiations very seriously.

The Geo—blocking Regulation is one first step to remove barriers to cross—border trade. Now we want to ensure that the entire ecosystem moves towards an internal market dimension for the benefit of consumers, as the pandemic showed us that this is the necessary outlook for Europe.

Therefore, we want to continue monitoring the implementation of the regulation and possible synergies with other internal market measures – some still to be implemented, such as VAT rules for e—commerce and harmonisation of consumer protection rules and, of course, the development of cross—border delivery.

On audiovisual content, we want to trigger a large stakeholder dialogue already this year to discuss how to improve access to, and the availability of, audiovisual content across the Union. The dialogue aims at setting specific, measurable targets upon which progress will be assessed before considering any follow—up measures, including legislation.

We will keep the Parliament closely linked to this discussion and look forward to working together to ensure that effective rules are in place that will contribute to a true dialogue and a true digital single market.

  Der Präsident. – Die Aussprache ist geschlossen.

Schriftliche Erklärungen (Artikel 171)

  Adam Bielan (ECR), in writing. – While digital revolution improves access to information, it often faces traditional barriers as well as new types of obstacles preventing the completion of the Digital Single Market. An example of such a barrier is the geo-blocking of content, services and goods. Geo-blocking practices discriminate European consumers on grounds of nationality or place of residence within the Internal Market. In my opinion, refusals of access to digital services or discrimination of consumers driven by geographic partitioning are not compatible with the ambition to create a ubiquitous Digital Single Market in Europe.

Significant delays in implementing the 2018 Geo-blocking Regulation have negative economic effects. Now more than ever, in times of the pandemic, small and medium-sized companies need new opportunities to reach out to new customers. From a customer’s point of view, this would represent a paramount step forward to create equality within the EU, while ensuring a larger choice and the same conditions to all in the entire Single Market.

In this regard, the effective removal of barriers to cross-border access to services and goods, affecting the well-functioning of the Digital Single Market, should be the European Commission’s top priority.

  Edina Tóth (NI), írásban. – A területi alapú tartalomkorlátozásról szóló rendelet megkönnyíti a határon átnyúló e-kereskedelmet, és biztosítja, hogy a fogyasztók egyenlő feltételekkel jussanak hozzá a kereskedők termékeihez és szolgáltatásaihoz az Európai Unió piacán. Fontosnak tartom, hogy polgárainknak többé ne kelljen aggódniuk amiatt, ha valamelyik weboldal letiltja vagy átirányítja őket vagy elutasítja bankkártyájukat, csak azért, mert máshonnan származnak vagy más uniós országban tartózkodnak. A szabályoknak azonban a szórakoztató és kreatív ágazatok terén is több lehetőséget kellene biztosítaniuk mind a fogyasztók, mind a vállalkozások számára az EU belső piacán.

Úgy gondolom ugyanis, hogy a két éve elfogadott rendelet teljes körű hatásai csak idővel fognak megmutatkozni, hiszen számos - e rendelethez kapcsolódó - intézkedések vannak az uniós asztal terítékén, illetve számos uniós jogi eszköz az elkövetkezendő időszakban válik alkalmazandóvá. Meg kell vizsgálnunk annak a lehetőségét, hogy az árukhoz és szolgáltatásokhoz való hozzáférés tekintetében a megkülönböztetésmentesség elve kiterjeszthető-e az elektronikus úton nyújtott olyan, nem audiovizuális szolgáltatásokra, amelyek fő jellemzője a szerzői jogi védelem alatt álló tartalom.