Selin Jani
National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland.
Nordisk Alkohol Nark. 2019 Apr;36(2):77-90. doi: 10.1177/1455072519835703. Epub 2019 Apr 9.
Research has shown that the EU's politico-legal influence over member states is contained through two political strategies: contained compliance and anticipatory obedience. Previous studies on gambling policies in the EU have quite uncritically presumed that the EU is capable of inducing changes, or even forcing changes, in national gambling policies. In this article, the objective was to investigate whether member states have adopted the two strategies allowing a containment of the EU's influence on their national gambling policies.
The politico-legal influence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Commission on national gambling policy is analysed in the case of Finnish monopoly-based gambling policy. The analysis is based on case law and policy documents.
The results indicate that Finland has adopted both anticipatory obedience and contained compliance when striving to safeguard its gambling monopoly system. Contained compliance was adopted during the early period of Finland's accession (1995-2001). Anticipatory obedience was exercised between the years 2004 and 2013, a period characterised by several critical legal cases and the infringement procedure commenced by the European Commission against Finland. During the third period (2014-2017), when the merger of three monopoly operators into a single state-owned company was on the agenda, neither strategy was adopted, indicating little EU influence (despite public justifications of the same).
The EU's opportunities to induce changes in the gambling policies of member states should not be overemphasised because member states are able to contain the EU's politico-legal influence. Future analyses of national gambling policies in the EU would benefit from taking the interaction between member states and the EU into account.
研究表明，欧盟对成员国的政治法律影响力通过两种政治策略得以控制：有限度的合规和预期性的服从。此前关于欧盟赌博政策的研究相当不加批判地假定，欧盟有能力促使甚至迫使成员国赌博政策发生变化。在本文中，目标是调查成员国是否采用了这两种策略，从而限制欧盟对其国家赌博政策的影响。
以芬兰基于垄断的赌博政策为例，分析欧盟法院（CJEU）和欧盟委员会对国家赌博政策的政治法律影响。分析基于判例法和政策文件。
结果表明，芬兰在努力维护其赌博垄断体系时采用了预期性服从和有限度的合规两种策略。在芬兰加入欧盟的早期阶段（1995 - 2001年）采用了有限度的合规。在2004年至2013年期间实行了预期性服从，这一时期有几起关键法律案件以及欧盟委员会对芬兰启动的侵权程序。在第三个阶段（2014 - 2017年），当三家垄断运营商合并为一家国有公司提上议程时，两种策略都未被采用，这表明欧盟的影响很小（尽管有同样的公开理由）。
不应过分强调欧盟促使成员国赌博政策发生变化的机会，因为成员国能够限制欧盟的政治法律影响。未来对欧盟国家赌博政策的分析若能考虑成员国与欧盟之间的互动将大有裨益。
