Brussels, 05/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - In an interview with the French magazine, Le Point, Françoise Castex (S&D, France), who is actively involved in negotiations on the international anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) conducted by the European Commission in strict confidentiality, deplores the lack of information available to the European Parliament on this issue. “All we want is transparency. It is a trial of strength. The Commission does not communicate with Parliament on ACTA. We have the impression it is a Trojan horse - using the pretext of a perfectly legitimate fight against counterfeiting, the Commission wants to get something else through. These talks go beyond trade issues. If sanctions are foreseen, then the trade commissioner is going beyond his mandate. This would be inadmissible market predominance: sanctions must not be negotiated by market representatives! If culture industrialists were to define criminal penalties, imagine where that would get us?”, Castex states, also asking whether a new agreement is needed, not negotiated at the WTO and without China. “We are in a defensive negotiation that is not being conducted with the countries at the origin of the problems”, she stressed. (E.H/transl.jl)