http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32607246

UK citizens may be able to continue using catch-up services including the BBC's iPlayer and Sky's Now TV as they travel across the European Union.

The proposal is part of a wider-ranging European Commission initiative for a "digital single market".

Would this be easy to accomplish from a technical point of view?

They couldn't restrict it to UK citizens, that would breach EU rules, it would have to be open to anyone in the EU.
The risk is that BBC Worldwide would then find it harder to sell their programmes to other countries' TV stations, if the viewers in those countries could watch for free online, so it could be financially very damaging for the BBC

Trivially so, they actually have to put a lot of effort in to stop it working today.

This is a very interesting addition to the recent news that the EU is looking at abolishing IP geoblocking in Europe.

Of course, this is interestingly different in that the BBC is actually now looking at a way to allow UK citizens access to the BBC when abroad.

As for the question about them being forced to open up to all EU citizens, that is something they could work around. For instance, they may decide to allow unblocked access to license fee holders only. In other words, when a license fee is paid, the person is given a login which they will need to use.

This login could be forced on all iPlayer users, or it may only come into affect if the iPlayer notices that the user is no longer in the UK.

Personally, I think that the BBC will move towards a license-fee login requirement (for all users), and then probably remove the IP geoblock for EU users. This is because they recently changed the way the law is interpreted in the UK that restricts legal action against BBC fee dodgers in the UK. So, they may end up with a lot of people just not bothering to pay.

The easy way around this is to force a login, which is only active to license-fee payers. It could become a little messy in regards to how it is implemented, as a household generally has one license-fee payer, and several others living there (whether a family or shared accommodation) so they would need to allow x amount of users to access that login.

But then nothing is stopping the family from handing it out to friends including those living abroad.

Still, it is a likely scenario.

But it will only work if the rights are resolved ..... And at the moment these are geo based....
And some rights holder may withhold.. And all will not want to see them getting (much) less than they do at the moment ..
Incidently there are far more controversial industrial and commercial implications of "one digital market ."..

No one said it will happen over night.

That is being looked at within another current story where the EU is considering opening up the EU as a single digital market.

Now, there are a number of ways they can do that. One is to simply say from x-point on, the EU is exactly that, a single market. If this is say three or four years in the future, this will give ample time for licensing issues to be resolved. After-all, most licenses are only for a duration of one to three years.

Or, they could simply use the log-in based on license fee payment as the geoblock and start sooner. After-all, there is nothing that says IP addresses have to be the only form of geoblocking.

In fact, license-fee and logins are far more secure than IP blocking. At this stage, anyone in the world can watch the BBC right now, just by using Hola for free, Smart DNS for next to nothing or a VPN for slightly more.

With a license-fee based login, this will not be possible except for family or close friends of UK residents, and this rules out the majority of the world.

Apple for instance don't use IP addresses as their geo-blocker, they just use access to the various iTunes stores.

I think given commercial pressures we're likely to see less online content if this happens. Or perhaps providers will do what the US is increasingly doing - you can only sign up with a local credit card for example.

It'd be a shame if this causes providers to pull back on online streams and catch-up, which would have the opposite effect of what the EU is 'intending' I suppose.