Brussels, 06/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - Following on from the committees on industry, civil liberties and legal affairs of the European Parliament, the committee on development, which has also been asked for its opinion, has called for ACTA to be rejected. The committee on international trade will take position on 21 June.
The members of the committee on trade did not go along with the opinion of their rapporteur, Jan Zahradil (ECR, Czech Republic), and called on Tuesday 5 June, by 19 votes against one and 3 abstentions, for the Parliament to refuse to give its blessing to the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Zahradil had initially recommended that the agreement be approved, stressing that it does not interfere with access to drugs, particularly trade in generic drugs for developing countries. But MEPs from the development committee voted for the agreement to be thrown out.
“There is only one way ahead with ACTA, and it's the refusal by the plenary of the Parliament in July. One of its dangers is the risk of undermining access to generic medicines by developing countries. Under ACTA as it stands, customs officials would be able to seize products with labels similar to trademarked brands”, Veronique De Keyser (S&D, Belgium), said on Tuesday.
On 30 and 31 May, three other committees - industry, civil liberties and legal affairs - which had been asked for their opinions rejected the highly controversial multi-lateral agreement negotiated outside the WTO and behind closed doors by Australia, Canada, South Korea, the United States, Japan, Morocco, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore and the EU. The agreement aims to protect intellectual property from traditional counterfeiting (such as with clothing and medicines) and also digital counterfeiting (such as illegal downloading) on the basis of a set of harmonised international standards. These opinions are not binding on the international trade committee, the competent committee on this issue, which will adopt its own position on 21 June. The agreement will then be put to the vote in plenary session. The overall rapporteur for the dossier, David Martin (S&D, UK) called on 25 April for ACTA to be rejected, because of its lack of clarity on fundamental rights, and for it to be renegotiated. Its flaws - which include too vague a definition of the term “commercial scale” and the implicit demand that internet service providers police the internet - mean that in practice, ACTA could have the unwelcome effect of weakening civil liberties.
At the end of April, the European Commission formally asked the EU Court of Justice to clarify the legality of ACTA, the adoption of which by the Parliament would seem more in doubt than ever. (EH/transl.fl)