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EU Court Rules Hungary's State Monopoly Over Mobile Payments Is Illegal (reuters.com)
Hungarian state's monopoly over national mobile payment services has been ruled illegal by the European Court of Justice. "The ruling would require the end of exclusive control over Hungarian mobile payments exercised since July 2014 by state-owned firm Nemzeti Mobilfizetesi Zrt," reports Reuters. "This exclusive operation 'is contrary to EU law,' the bloc's top court said in a statement."
"Even if the services provided under that system constitute services of general economic interest, their supply cannot be reserved to a state monopoly," the court added.
"Even if the services provided under that system constitute services of general economic interest, their supply cannot be reserved to a state monopoly," the court added.
I mean, how could that be deemed illegal if there must not be a state monopoly for other payment systems?
Nemzeti Mobilfizetési Zrt
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Any background on this story, or is there just a court outcome for something I've never heard about?
No. Hungary is allowed to run a mobile payment service, but Hungary is not allowed to forbid private companies from doing the same. It is not allowed to require by law that all mobile payments go through the state operated mobile payment processor.
People don't have compatible phones, or places to use it. Paypass/Paywave cards were introduced a few years ago and everybody got one issued by now.
Are you seriously saying that a UK outside of the EU will have less lobbyist in power? You will be in for a bad surprise...
No you slobbering illiberal twit. Did you even read summary? You just saw EU and hurr hurr brexit.
What kind of mental fucking gymnastics do you have to pull to think a state controlled monopoly on mobile payments is a good idea? In what dimension, what reality would this be a good plan? And it's not even a state monopoly. It's the state taking kickbacks from some oligarch to be handed control of a lucrative industry.
It's this kind of fucking nonsense that the EU was expressly designed to fix. Hungary wants the benefits of the EU? They adopt policies that are not fucking for terrible the country and member countries.
Because it's not just Hungary that's hurt by this god-awful policy. It's everyone who does business with people in the Hungary.
Here again the EU court of justice pushes its agenda about free market obsession. And since EU institutions do not have a real legislator, this landmark ruling will be law unless all member states agree to overturn it.
The article is pretty sparse, but I'm curious.
There isn't much of a ruling here.
I'm in Canada. We have universal healthcare and we FORBID the private sector from operating a competing health care system.
Would this kind of situation be forbidden by the EU? My hunch says no because Healthcare! But I ask myself from a legal perspective, why can't a country make a case that payments go through it's national system for whatever reasons that constitute the general economic interest?
I've googled a fair bit for some legal analysis, but it's sparse. The court basically says they should have done it through legislation/standardization....
But I'm trying to figure out how this works with all other kinds of state monopolies be it in healthcare, transit, roads, utilities...
Charging interest is not a good thing kike.
"So the EU is now dictating which services it's member governments are allowed to run" No, just that they don't own the MONOPOLY on the entirety of the monetization of that. READ CAREFULLY LIBERTARIAN NUTJOBS!
Then I have some bad news for you.
Your country has signed and ratified the TPPA (or "CPTPP" as it is now called).
The "general economic interest" is no longer be a priority for your country - only the economic interest of the controlling corporations.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
It costs little to nothing to send a payment with something like Dash, Bitcoin Cash, Zen Cash, ZCash, or numerous other crypto currencies.
Since when? It costs money to buy or sell cryptocurrency with majority-familiar currency or a different cryptocurrency, and it costs a transaction fee in cryptocurrency to transfer cryptocurrency to a seller's wallet. With Bitcoin, the transaction fee briefly hit the equivalent of 34 USD a year ago.
That seems draconian. What if mobile payments are used for crime or money laundering? Seems like Hungary should have a right to overree its own economy, regardless of the EU or Eurozone.
This company provides service only for paying parking and highway fee. These services are not free market services. Parking fees are determined by the local government, road fee is state determined.
Highways are built by the state. Maintenance of these roads, handling of fees, fines are outsourced to basically one state owned company.
Parking lots are built and maintained most widely by local governments. The administration of parking (handling of fees, fines) are handled by private companies.
Except from these services mobil payment is practically nonexistent in Hungary. The private sector never came up with a working solution.
The most recent project is: The state coerces the banks to implement full payment processing within 5 seconds. Fyi card payment processing takes several days till the money gets credited on the recipients account.
IMHO this is state granted monopoly to generate advancement on a market, where private sector fails. This is yet another case of applying advanced market rules on a developing market. The classical issue of the EU's east-west problem.
Source: I live in Hungary and work in this sector.
You people are all so fucking stupid, it's depressing.
The EU is a club. It costs money to join, there are rules to follow, and there are benefits of membership, like frictionless access to a market of several hundred million people. With the exception of the money, this is no different from every international agreement between two or more countries. If Hungary wants to have airlines flying into its airports and through its airspace, then it must agree to be bound by the various treaties that govern international aviation, which also impose onerous requirements on what it can and cannot do.
You people getting your knickers in a twist over sovereignty are the epitome of Randian stupidity. And like the Randians, what's particularly galling is that you actually think you're bright.
Very coy, that Rothschild allusion.
First time I've seen anyone on Slashdot worry about letting their antisemitism show through in technicolour.
They can reduce the benefits of EU membership, such as payments, access to markets, etc. Eventually, they could kick them out.
So the EU is now dictating which services it's member governments are allowed to run? I wonder which telcos lobbied EU officials for that little gem. Brexit was the right move.
Pretty much every time there's any news about anything at all the EU has done, some idiots totally shit themselves and start with the "herp derp sovereignty Brexit" mantra.
Here's a free clue: no one will ever agree to deal with you on anything if you too don't agree to some rules.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I live in Belgium. If I want I can do my own health insurance. In fact I have and the company pays for it.
It covers single room occupancy and longer paymemt and more when I am sick over a longer period.
Without it, you still get healthcare and a minimal wage, but eXtra insurance is always possible.
Hey we are less communist than Canada. Who knew? (Thanks for liberating the EU and not moaning about it.)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Would this kind of situation be forbidden by the EU? My hunch says no because Healthcare!
I guess we could work through the healthcare systems of every (27/28) member states, but that sounds boring. Probably not? I don't know of any EU country off hand which forbids private healthcare.
Also, the EU does segment things differently for different industries, because it's made up of the member countries and they all want regulations segmented by industry.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Would this kind of situation be forbidden by the EU? My hunch says no because Healthcare!
This is one of the problems with North American thinking. It's typically worse in the USA but Canada suffers from it too. There are very few absolutes, very little black and white, very little either or scenarios in much of the world.
In both Australia and where in the EU I live now we had public healthcare. We also had private healthcare. They lived side by side in unison, either overtly, or covertly. In Australia it was overtly: You had medicare coverage, you opted for private coverage. If you had a life threattening injury the ambulance took you to a hospital and after they ask how you wanted to be covered. If you had a non-life threatting issue you actively got asked beforehand. Had this myself when I had my hernia OP. I elected to go to a private hospital, they told me up front the fees and how much my private insurance covered, .... then I went back to the doctor and asked to be re-reffered to a public hospital.
As it is now I have public health insurance. To claim that insurance I need to see a public doctor for a referral. At any time I can go to any other doctor or hospital anyway, and there are private insurances which I could purchase to cover me there.
But I'm trying to figure out how this works with all other kinds of state monopolies be it in healthcare, transit, roads, utilities...
As I said above healthcare is easy. As for the rest of them: Transit is a greyer area. There are definitely private transit systems all throughout Europe. But the rest of the list tends towards natural monopolies rather than state protected monopolies. For example it's not the government saying "no you are not allowed to compete with me" for that new start-up sewer company, but "no you are not allowed to dig here" is a very different and quite defendable story. Most government run services end up being monopolies for reasons other than the government trying to keep them that way, and typically that is the result of not having the legal power to start the business.
E.g. You see very few private competitive train operators in city centres, but at the same time a lot of resource movement happens via private rail lines. The difference is the potential to make money as well as the ability to build a train line in the city vs on your own massive plot of land.
I said they *could* kick them out. They obviously don't want to. So club members obviously have a lot of leeway. But it's certainly a conceivable option. If a country committed genocide or began a war with another EU country, I think they'd be kicked out.
Whatever the EU does, the Hungarian government will seek to use it to rally support. I mean, duh. So what? That's just a question of tactics and strategy on the part of the EU and Hungary. Personally, I think relatively few Hungarians are likely to become more avid haters of the EU and backers of their government on the basis of a ruling about mobile payments and state monopolies, but by all means take a different view.
complete bollox. you abide by the rules of the club when you join. brexiters see conspiracy theories in their morning cereal.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
bollox, brexit trolling conspiracy theorist - all EU states are sovereign.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Unfortunately it is impossible to forcibly expel a member of the EU. The worst thing the EU can do is suspending the voting rights of a member, but it has to be a unanimous decision.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Nope. The EU government is regulating which services its member governments are allowed to run as monopolies (and there are cases where monopolies are allowed. In Finland and Sweden for example all liquor stores are government run which has been allowed because the revenue collected from the sale of liquor are used by the state to provide health care to treat alcohol-related illnesses).
There's nothing about this ruling that prevents the Hungarian government from maintaining a payment service, this ruling just means the state cannot use its power to prevent competition from emerging or entering the market. In the exact same way the Hungarian government can start selling cars for all the Union cares, as long as they don't enact a system whereby all auto-sales have to be conducted through the government.
Free market and freedom of competition is one of the core values of the Union. There are plenty of existing mobile-payment companies in existence in Europe that cannot currently enter the market in Hungary because of the monopoly, and that violates European law.
Oh yes, finally the British government free from this tyrannical oppression of the free market will be able to implement more state-run monopolies, because who needs competition when the State can simply run all the services, right? Brexit remains of the largest political blunders in modern British history that will do them exactly no good.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Well, let's just hope they lose their voting rights and their subsidies will be drastically lowered.
That might even make them quit by themselves, that would be the best possible outcome for the EU.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
With attitudes like yours, is it any wonder the EU is so fantastically unpopular?
Ohhh didums, did someone point out the truth hurt you?
The EU isn't unpopular here in Europe. What is unpopular here are mass shootings, expensive health care, slavery-like employment contracts and large engines that produce little power.
We also don't hate the US, nor are dependent on it. At worst, we feel sorry for you and wish you luck in fixing your country.
You on the other hand, epitomise every negative stereotype of Americans. Painfully ignorant and outstandingly arrogant.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I understand the nuances of the world and the diversity of systems. I'm more interested in figuring out the EU courts position on things.
For example, I found this article.
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
Basically the EU court ruled that France can keep it's horse betting monopoly because it claims it is to prevent gambling problems.
So my question is why can't that apply to mobile payments for Hungary?
Could Hungary not keep it's mobile payment monopoly to prevent financial problems (fraud, theft. terrorism...whatever else it can claim as the general economic interest)
Because surely France could also legislate and regulate an open market of horse gambling in the same way as Hungary can legislate and regulate an open market for mobile payments.
Of course it could just be that France is bigger power and the EU is more timid towards them. Yet, assuming the EU court is trying to be fair, I'm trying to figure out the rule and the difference.
I'm in Canada. We have universal healthcare and we FORBID the private sector from operating a competing health care system.
Would this kind of situation be forbidden by the EU?
How about that, huh?
It's almost like EU politics is arbitrary and about whatever signals the most virtue.
Hungary of course is also eeeevil because they don't want to be overrun by culturally incompatible immigrants. I'm sure that has nothing to do with sticking it to them.
sure, as long as you don't still want to take advantage of the benefits once you are out the door
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
clearly you don't understand they applied the law as it stands, they did not make the law. go do some research and then ask someone to explain it to you
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
I think the case may be more nuanced than this. It would appear that there were some seriously complex details discussed during this case, and it's not over since all that happened was guidance that referred it back to the lower court. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/legal_... I'm sure it worked in France's favour that the PMU is also setup as a not for profit body.
In general the EU frowns upon all monopolies that have no reason for being so, and while Slashdot gets in uproar over the occasional story that makes it here, there are actually a lot of such rulings each year.
Now I do wonder if there's something else here too. The French ruling was referred back to the lower court. I haven't found any details here but with the little information we have it looks more absolute. I wonder if this has to do with the current falling out between Hungary and the EU precisely due to the issue of independence of courts from the government. The fact that the EU and Hungary are fighting actively on this issue is no secret, so maybe there was politics involved as much as I like to hope there wasn't.
The EU is made up of its member states, including Hungary. Its members decide which industries are regulated and to what extent. Monopolies enforced by the government in areas like this are frowned upon in every EU country. Try again with your breathless, feigned outrage.