Malta’s Prime Minister has said his nation will veto any attempts by the EU to introduce a bloc-wide online gambling levy, threatening to place the industry at the centre of febrile European politics.
Robert Abela has told Malta’s parliament that he would use his nation’s member state veto to block the passage of the next EU budget, if a proposed gambling levy is included.
The budget, formally known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), lays out how the EU will spend its €2trn budget from 2028 to 2034.
The prospect of adding a continent-wide tax to the budget remains only a proposal, but the idea has heavyweight backing.
Vice-president of the European Parliament Victor Negrescu is spearheading these efforts, arguing that a fast-growing digital industry that generates billions in revenue should be subject to EU-level taxation.
Negrescu says that the levy could generate between €2-4bn every year.
“This industry fully benefits from the EU’s single market, digital infrastructure and crossborder access, but operates under fragmented rules, unequal taxation and insufficient enforcement,” he said.
The online gambling sector might well quibble with the specifics of these claims.
The idea that it “fully benefits” from the EU single market may have been unassailably true in the point-of-supply era, but the subsequent fragmentation of national rules that Negrescu refers to has significantly complicated that picture.
Nevertheless, backing for the levy from a senior European politician has naturally spooked the industry and its primary champion within the EU, Malta.
The levy would be so damaging to Malta’s economic interests that it is willing to use its most powerful EU instrument by executing a veto in the European Council in order to block the budget from being approved.
That would likely plunge the island nation into the centre of a political firestorm, but recent history suggests that smaller EU nations and their allies can successfully disrupt budget negotiations.
During discussions over the 2020 EU budget, Poland and Hungary successfully secured concessions after they both threatened to veto the MFF over rule-of-law requirements.
Malta will also hope to rely on support from the Friends of Cohesion, an informal alliance of 16 nations concerned with regional development, of which it is a part.
Negrescu’s pledge to pair his levy with a “clear EU directive against illegal and unlicensed platforms” is unlikely to satisfy the online gambling industry, despite growing complaints of a rampant black market from a number of quarters.
Malta strikes again
In simple terms, Malta is seeking to protect an industry which accounts for 10 percent of its gross domestic product.
The nation has shown a clear willingness to ignore the EU’s wishes in order to shield the many gaming firms that host their headquarters within its borders.
Most notably, the creation of Bill 55 has successfully protected local companies from having to repay hundreds of millions of euros in player refund settlements.
Ongoing cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union suggest that Europe’s top judges will soon rule against Bill 55, which is now Article 56A of Malta’s gambling act.
The European Commission also launched infringement proceedings against Malta over the provision
Tax troubles.
There are so far no specifics on how the levy would be calculated or what value it would be set at, but beyond Malta an additional levy would also be extremely challenging for operators in European markets already struggling with high tax burdens.
This includes the Netherlands, where a government report released this week has shown that staggered increases to taxes of 37.8 percent of gross gambling revenue (GGR) have failed to deliver any benefit to the country’s budget.
Even a relatively slight increase to this tax rate could send more operators scurrying out the market and see channelisation dive further than its current rate of 55 percent.
Nations like France, where online betting is taxed at 59.3 percent of GGR, or Portugal, with its 8 percent turnover tax on online sports betting, would also feel an impact.
Negotiations over the contents of the EU budget are set to continue for several months, with the approval process expected to be completed in late 2026 or early 2027.
Leaders in the Council of Europe have agreed to come to a preliminary deal on the MFF by October, according to a coordinated statement issued earlier this month.
Malta’s devout opposition to a possible gambling levy is just one of a range of issues under discussion, including a stark divide between nations such as Germany, which favour spending cuts, and the Friends of Cohesion, who want additional cash for agriculture and regional funding.
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