Brussels, 26/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - Green and Social Democrat MEPs are calling for obstacles to be put in the way of the ACTA agreement (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) after it was signed by 22 EU member states.
Despite the fact that in the EU many MEPs, associations and NGOs had rallied in protest to signature of the agreement, 22 EU member states signed the ACTA agreement on Thursday 26 January.
Negotiated outside the WTO and behind closed doors between 2007 and 2010, the multilateral trade agreement which protects intellectual property against traditional counterfeiting (clothing, medicines, etc.) and digital counterfeiting (illegal downloading), on the basis of harmonised international norms, had been signed on 1st October in Tokyo by Australia, Canada, South Korea, the United States, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand and Singapore. After not having signed for “technical reasons”, Germany, Estonia, Cyprus, the Netherlands and Slovakia are expected to sign in coming weeks, thus triggering ratification procedure within the European Parliament.
The Greens/EFA and S&D will stand in the way of ratification in Parliament. French Green member Sandrine Bélier denounced on Thursday what she called “dangerous insouciance, at worst a deliberate resolve on the part of EU member states to give way to the logic of privatisation of the planet's resources that belong to all”. She went on to say that government officials have demonstrated that the commercial and financial interests of a few have more clout than defence of the general interest of all citizens. By signing ACTA, she said, they also scorn the opinions expressed by eminent jurists who have underlined the fact that the text of the agreement is not in line with EU law, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. ACTA, took up Kader Arif of France, a member of S&D, poses a problem whether it is a matter of its impact on civil liberties, or the responsibilities that it makes internet access providers shoulder, or the consequences that it has on the manufacture of generic medicines, or the little protection that it provides for geographical indications. The agreement, he said, can have a major impact on the lives of citizens. (EH/transl.jl)