EU reaches agreement on access to online services while travelling

The EU reached an agreement on Tuesday evening on the rules that allow EU citizens to use services such as Netflix, Spotify and Steam when traveling within other member states. Once approved, the rules should come into effect in 2018.

The European Commission writes that the rules focus on, for example, films, sporting events, e-books, games and music services. Currently, the use of such services in another Member State may be limited or different, due to the fact that the offer is only available if the user is in his home country, or that the offer differs from country to country. The latter is the case with Netflix.

The EU wants to get rid of this practice of geo-blocking with the new rules, which take the form of a regulation. The rules do not exclude that services such as Netflix offer different offers per country. However, people must then be able to access the films and series to which they are entitled in the country of purchase in all Member States with their subscription.

The example given by the Commission is that a Frenchman also gains access to his Canal+ subscription in Croatia. The rules only apply to paid services. According to the Commission, free providers can decide themselves to allow access in the same way. A provider such as Netflix can verify the user’s home country based on the payment details, the contract or an IP address.

The new rules still need to be approved by the Council and the European Parliament before they come into force at the beginning of next year. Member States and providers have nine months to prepare for the regulation. The European Commission presented the plans in December 2015. At first it seemed as if nothing would come of it, but the Council approved the package of rules in May.