People gain right to use online content EU-wide

“There's not been a major battle,” a Commission source told EUobserver on condition of anonymity.

The deal was reached in so-called trilogue meetings between representatives of the institutions. The final text of the compromise is still subject to scrutiny of legal experts, and is not expected to be made public before Friday.

The new rules will allow EU citizens that subscribe to an online service, like Netflix or Spotify, to have the same catalogue from home available in other EU countries. The commission calls it portability of online content.

Currently, access is restricted through a principle known as geo-blocking - the unavailability of content based on a user's geographical location.

Tech-savvy consumers use a virtual private network (VPN) to fool the service provider into thinking they are in another geographical place.

“Let's be realistic about the situation we have today,” said the commission source.

“If they travel, people in certain cases use VPN to get access to stuff they already bought at home … We need a situation where people feel comfortable enough to pay for content.”

A second commission source said that the new legislation is “reasonable”, and gave the example of a French citizen who is temporarily in Belgium.

“It is very difficult to imagine that a person in a hotel room, if he had not had portability, would have subscribed for a Belgian service just for one day when they are here on business.”

German Green MEP Julia Reda agreed with the commission that the essence of the proposal had not changed.

Instead, the compromise deal included new details that Reda said would increase “safeguards for data protection”.

Companies offering content would need to check what member state is a user's home state.

The first commission source noted this is done just once, when the contract with the provider is signed.

“The data is not kept,” he said.

Reda said some language had been tweaked to make sure the rules could not be circumvented by service providers who wanted to continue geo-blocking practices.

She also said that the proposal itself was fine, but that it would not fully end geo-blocking for many Europeans.

Irrelevant rule for 26 percent

Only EU citizens who travel abroad will benefit from it.

According to the most recently published Eurobarometer survey on travel, 26 percent of EU citizens do not travel at all.

The question was: “During 2015, how many times did you travel for professional or personal reasons where you were away from home for a minimum of one night?”

The countries with the most people who did not travel were Malta (43 percent), Portugal (42 percent), Romania (40 percent). In nine EU countries at least 30 percent of the population did not travel that year.

Non-travelling EU citizens would perhaps have liked it if the EU had tackled other types of geo-blocking.

“It does not solve the problem that many consumers would like to access TV shows, series or sport events from a foreign provider,” said Johannes Kleis, spokesman of Brussels-based consumer organisation Beuc.

“People who want to access content from a foreign provider - for instance because they belong to a language minority and don't find the content of their choice in their home country - should be allowed to do so."

Reservations aside, Kleis added that Tuesday's deal "is an important step.”

His organisation had sent a press release hailing the deal as “very good news for EU consumers”.

It noted that roaming surcharges, which are slapped on top of phone bills when using the internet in another EU country, will end soon. This will likely increase the number of people who want to watch online content while abroad.