The European Union plans to bring streaming services in line with traditional broadcasters by requiring their catalogues consist of at least 20% European films and TV shows. The plan is set to be unveiled by Brussels next week.
The rules currently only apply to national broadcasters, and act to protect markets from being dominated by US imports.
This new legislation would apply not just to Netflix and Amazon Prime, but to all streaming services operating in the EU.
However Netflix (which recently put out European-produced Marseille) has warned that the rules would result in a "perverse incentive" for services to buy swathes of cheap European content to fill these "rigid numerical quotas".
US domination
Currently the output of streaming services is dominated by American produced content such as House of Cards, Narcos and Man in the High Castle.
This has lead to fears that European production companies risk being squeezed out of the market by the high-budget American competitors.
Online streaming services are estimated to invest only 1% of their turnover on new productions, compared to a rate of 20% for traditional broadcasters.
The changes are part of a raft of new EU legislation designed to bring streaming services across national markets in line with one another, including giving users the ability to view their home streaming content from the likes of Netflix while abroad in Europe.
