Strasbourg, 09/09/2010 (Agence Europe) - Ten months after its publication in February, the declaration criticising the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) drawn up by Alexander Alvaro (ALDE, Germany), Françoise Castex (S&D, France), Stavros Lambrinidis (Greece, S&D) and Zuzana Roithová (Czech Republic, EPP) obtained, this week, a sufficient number of signatures at the European Parliament (337 signatures, eight more than the majority) to be officially adopted. This text is not binding but does set out the Parliament's policy orientation on a very controversial dossier. Its president, Jerzy Buzek, must now send it to the Council, which will have to acknowledge the shortcomings underlined by MEPs with regard to the multilateral agreement, secretly negotiated since 2007 between Australia, Canada, South Korea, the US, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Jordan, Morocco, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland. This agreement aims to protect intellectual property from the usual forms of counterfeiting (clothes and medicines), as well as from digital counterfeiting (illegal downloading), on the basis of harmonised international standards.
Under the terms of the written declaration, the Parliament (which, thanks to the powers conferred upon it under the Lisbon Treaty, will have the last word on ACTA) gives a warning about the confidentiality of the negotiations and reiterates its request for the European Commission to publish all of the documents related to this treaty.
The text focuses on the most controversial aspects and the contents of the draft agreement, such as the chapter on the internet and sanctions for illegal downloading, as well as the chapter on medicines. Although it targets counterfeiting and harassment activities that damage commercial interests and not those of ordinary citizens, ACTA raises a number of concerns linked to the possibility that it might not respect fundamental freedoms and rights to a private life. It is particularly the chapter on the internet that has raised the most fears, particularly when there was a growing rumour at the beginning of the year that the US was in favour of the “three strikes and you're out” principle which, similarly to the Hadopi law in France, stipulates that the first two sanctions for illegal downloading warrant a warning or a fine and a third involves having one's access to the internet cut off. Based on this principle, ACTA would have required large-scale surveillance of internet users and would have imposed a requirement on internet service providers to adopt this “three strikes and you're out” disconnection principle.
According to the written declaration, the Parliament considers that ACTA “should not indirectly impose a harmonisation of Community law on copyright, patents and trademarks”. It also believes that ACTA “should not hinder the right to a fair trial or reduce fundamental rights, such as the freedom of expression and the right to a private life”. The Parliament underlines that “economic and risk assessment for innovation must be taken into account before the introduction of criminal sanctions, when civil measures are already in place”. It also considers that “internet service providers should not be made responsible for the data they transmit or which is stored by their services, insofar as this would involve prior surveillance or screening of this data”. Finally, the EP emphasises that any measure aimed at reinforcing cross-border inspections and the seizing of goods “should not endanger access to legal and safe medicines at accessible prices”.
Commissioner De Gucht provides new guarantees
Addressing the plenary on Wednesday 8 September in Strasbourg, Commissioner Karel De Gucht, responsible for trade, repeated that the EU would not be selling off its acquisitions in the negotiations over ACTA. He promised that the EU would re-examine its participation in the agreement if it ultimately failed to bring any added value. Addressing MEPs who still harboured reservations regarding ACTA's compatibility with respect for the fundamental rights of citizens, internet neutrality and the free movement of generic medicines, De Gucht provided new guarantees. He provided assurances that ACTA targeted infringements involving copyright law and not the control of travellers' laptops or the harassment of consumers. He also affirmed that European law in force on intellectual property would be maintained and that the goal was to establish international copyright standards, which, according to the Commission, should be aligned on the Community acquis. Finally, De Gucht provided assurances that ACTA would not hinder access to generic medicines.
In a follow-up to the 10th negotiating session in Washington in the middle of last August, the commissioner described the limited progress that had been made on the chapters relating to the civil and criminal enforcement measures and the general chapters in the agreement, as well as the “step backwards” on the controversial chapter on the internet. Moreover, Mr De Gucht also explained that ACTA, “appears to lose its strength, while the debates move on”. He regretted that “the different parties will only reach an agreement on the lowest common denominator, because of the significant variety of traditions in stakeholder countries”. The commissioner made assurances that, despite the opposition of certain stakeholder countries to the agreement, the EU would not renounce its goal to include the protection of geographical indications in ACTA and which at this stage, only protected copyright and trademarks. The next round of negotiations on ACTA will take place on 20 September-1 October in Tokyo. (E.H./transl.fl)