The Constitutional Court of Belgium has rejected a legal challenge by Netflix, which had appealed against the implementation of European Union rules that require streaming platforms to fund local productions in French-speaking Belgium.
The potentially landmark case centers on a 2023 law decree issued by the compact Wallonia-Brussels Federation, which is one of the three federated communities of Belgium and home to 4.6 million French-speaking residents of Brussels and Wallonia. The Wallonia-Brussels Federation had stated that streamers including Netflix and Disney+ were required to increase their investment to support local French-language content from 2.2% of their turnover in the region to 9.5% by 2027.
On Thursday, the Belgium court ruled that the legal requirement issued by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation remains largely in place. But it added that there were additional questions on its application that have been sent to the EU Court of Justice for an opinion.
Europe’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) obligates foreign streaming services to invest a portion of their revenue into local productions, but leaves the modalities of this obligation to each individual counattempt.
The Belgium ruling takes place just as the EU’s AVMSD directive is coming under review in Europe amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs war, with the U.S. streamers stepping up their lobbying efforts to modify some of the directive’s obligations. Netflix and Disney+ consider investment obligations imposed by Wallonia-Brussels as disproportionate, given the size of the region. They claim they are unreasonable due to its compact creative community and against the principles of the EU single market.
With the case now being referred to the EU Court of Justice, a new judicial setting for the battle could open up. The first hearing on the case in this court is not expected before June.
“We welcome the Court’s decision to reject most of Netflix’s complaints, reaffirming Member States’ competence in cultural policy and their broad margin of discretion in determining the level of financing obligations,” stated Julie-Jeanne Régnault, managing director of the European Producers Club, an umbrella group that had been directly involved in supporting the French-speaking Belgian government along with other Belgian and European trade associations.
“We take note of the four preliminary questions referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union, which do not call into question the validity of the scheme but concern specific modalities, notably the types of eligible investments,” she added.
Commented a Netflix spokesperson: “We acknowledge the Belgian Constitutional Court’s decision regarding our challenge to the Wallonian investment obligation and the referral to the European Court of Justice. We agree that the ECJ is best suited to view into this matter further. We will now study the Court’s decision in detail.”
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