Amid recent reports and rumours that several key international online poker operators are intent on pulling out of France and Spain due to high taxation and low player liquidity in dedicated player pools, the head of French regulator ARJEL has acknowledged that he is concerned at the 5 percent drop in online poker cash game revenues last year.
ARJEL president Jean-François Vilotte said in his annual report for 2012 that international pooling of poker players was important if long term viability is to be achieved. This was especially the case in cash game activity, which contributes 80 percent of total revenues; tournament revenues delivered a 21 percent increase, but comprise only 20 percent of total revenues.
However, change will require amendments to French law by the politicians, and that could take some time.
In the meantime there have been reports of recent get-togethers of officials from other countries that have installed restricted network poker regimes, such as Italy, Spain and Portugal, and France has been a participant.
Whether these talks will result in a shared European pool is open to speculation; there does not appear to have been too much in the way of practical developments thus far.
Compatibility on regulations, restrictions and taxation would seem to be just some of the hurdles facing the concept.