Open for business
With a new government elected in Spain just days after the passage of the country’s egaming legislation, what lies ahead for Europe’s newest regulated market?
? Tom Victor
On 18 November, six months after the country’s gaming proposals were ?rst passed into law, the Spanish market opened for licence applications. Two days later, the centre-right Popular Party was elected into power in the EU member state, supplanting the previous socialist government. But questions remain as to whether the new regime will provide an early stumbling block for egaming legislation, or if the opening of the process two days earlier has come just in time. Eduardo Morales-Hermo, a Madrid-based economist and gaming consultant, believes potential problems could arise for those operators that have left it late to apply for a licence. While no communication has been made on a formal basis, Morales-Hermo says information has been given to operators that may be affected by the change in the country’s governance. He explains: “The only relevant issue might be that the regulator intends to ?nalise the ?rst set of licensees by 19 December, providing their applications have been presented and completed during the ?rst half of the application opening period. If that happens, those who present their applications towards the end of the opening period might not be awarded a licence until January
Victory: Mariano Rajoy Brey, Spain's recently elected Prime Minister
16
Number of operators revealed by eGR on 15 November to be preparing Spanish licence applications.
2012, due to the workload and the veri?cation processes. It looks like all those that complied and applied before 2 December will be able to have licences, and the rest that apply by 14 December, will have a two to three week delay,” adds Morales-Hermo. Santiago Asensi, lawyer with Madrid ?rm Asensi Abogados, agrees: “It’s difficult to think that the Popular Party will adopt any measures straight away considering the need to tackle unemployment and other important issues ?rst.” However, Asensi admits: “We could reach the point where the new government makes 100 measures about a variety of aspects and one of those covers gambling.” Like Morales-Hermo, he does not believe the change of government will have too severe an impact on the legislation now that it has been put into action, despite concerns from some quarters that the fragile nature of the tenure of the previous government could be seen to discredit the measures they passed in 2011. Still, he notes that: “The Popular Party has already said publicly in a conference that it is not happy with the way things are being performed and it was too fast a process.
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