Brussels, 26/01/2010 (Agence Europe) - On 26-29 January, Mexico will host the 7th round of negotiations on an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in which will take part, in addition to Mexico itself, Australia, Canada, Japan, Jordan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and the EU. A Community source has revealed that discussions will focus on the chapters on civil measures, customs measures, digital counterfeiting and transparency. An 8th round of talks is scheduled for April, probably in New Zealand. ACTA, which has been under secret negotiation since 2007, seeks to better combat piracy and counterfeiting across the planet. It is based on enhanced international cooperation through harmonised standards to protect intellectual property against traditional counterfeiting (from clothes to medicines) and against digital counterfeiting (illegal downloading). The European Commission says that ACTA has to have common enforcement action and a modern legal framework that reflects the changing nature of violation of intellectual property in a globalised economy.
ACTA, while targeting counterfeiting and piracy that harm trade interests, rather than those of ordinary citizens, nevertheless continues to concern civil rights organisation and especially internet surfers' groups, worried that it does not respect the right to privacy or the rights of defence of citizens accused of wrongdoing. Taking the view that an international agreement of this scale should not be negotiated in secret, associations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the United States and the Quadrature du Net in France have requested access to documents, but have so far met with only limited success or refusal. The European Parliament, too, is calling for greater transparency, several MEPs having argued the case during the hearing of Commissioner-designate for Trade Karel De Gucht in early January.
ACTA is a source of concern also among European telecoms network operators. On Monday 25 January, ETNO, the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association, which represents incumbent European operators, called on the EU to ensure that ACTA does not breach the rights of internet users, as enshrined in Community law by the telecoms package. Apart from the lack of transparency of the negotiating process, the incumbent operators fear that ACTA may introduce “disproportionate” measures, such as filtering or disconnection from the internet. “ETNO is concerned that the ACTA framework does not distinguish between different counterfeiting and online copyright infringements and therefore fails to deal with related challenges in the most appropriate way. The existing EU legal framework, through the E-Commerce and IPR Enforcement Directives, already allows for legal action against copyright infringement,” it says in a press release. (E.H./transl.rt)