‘EU votes in December for mandatory European partial offer on Netflix and Amazon’

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video will probably have to deal with the rule from December that thirty percent of their on-demand offer must consist of European productions. According to Roberto Viola of the European Union, this plan will almost certainly be voted on at the end of this year.

Roberto Viola, Director-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology at the European Commission, told Variety that EU plans are likely to be approved in December. It is a final vote, but according to him that is only a formality. The Member States and the European Parliament will then probably agree.

According to Viola, the 28 EU member states will then have another twenty months to put the standards into practice, with member states also being able to choose to increase the quota from thirty to forty percent. According to Viola, Netflix currently has an offer that already consists of almost thirty percent European content. In October, the EU will publish figures on the percentage of European films or series on the various streaming platforms.

If the plan is actually enacted into law in December, at least thirty percent of the offer of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video must eventually consist of European productions. A preliminary agreement on the imposition of this quota was already reached in April. The streaming services must initiate European productions themselves, purchase them or contribute to European national film funds. The 30% quota is higher than what the European Commission proposed in 2016. Then there was talk of twenty percent.