EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy met with French Budget Minister Eric Woerth to set out a timetable for a "political settlement" of the issue, and the politicians indicate that "technical details" should be worked out by this coming February with the goal of reaching a deal by the middle of March, 2008.
France is poised to take over the EU presidency, which revolves every few years, in July of 2008. Woerth said the gambling dispute should be settled by then. "It is not good to have such problems linger," he added.
Rival Problems
Last week, Petter Nylander, chief executive of online gaming company Unibet Group PLC, was released on bail after being questioned over French betting laws.The case began in 2006 against Unibet, whent he French lottery monopoly Francaise des Jeux and horse betting monopoly PMU started the trouble to thwart their rival.
These state-owned monopolies wanted Unibet and other online gambling firms to stay out of France.
Woerth said the issue came up in his talks with McCreevy, but insisted that even if the time was unfortunate, the government had no way of influencing the judicial decision to seek his arrest.
The EU has threatened to bring countries before the European Court of Justice if they do not reform voluntarily and end harassment of Internet gaming companies.
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