There is a palpable feeling of pressure with just a few days to go until the European Parliament vote on the judicial affairs committee's negotiating mandate on copyright reform, which is very likely to take place on 5 July. While the different positions are taking shape, The Financial Times revealed in an article that Google was offering financial support to press publications for writing to MEPs.
It should be recalled that the draft directive introduces new exceptions to copyright rules and sets out new provisions to ensure better protection for European creativity. After several attempts to postpone the vote, the judicial affairs committee (JURI) finally reached its position on the text on 20 June last. Even though the divisions were sharper than expected (14 votes for, 9 against, with 2 abstentions), it is a strong probability that some MEPs will call for a re-vote during their plenary session on 2-5 July. The European Parliament’s Article 69c effectively allows for 10% of the Parliament to demand a vote for a negotiating mandate that has already been granted to a Parliamentary committee and, in the event of the mandate being rejected, introducing amendments during a subsequent plenary session.
Two well “organised” groups
One MEP informed us that he had received almost 40,000 emails ahead of the JURI committee vote.
With the approach of the plenary vote (very likely to be on 5 July), the lobbyists are already on deck. Successive events by the lobbyists for the press are being organised. These include activities by the authors, newspaper publishers and commercial TV, which are very much in favour of the text. In addition to conferences, the European Publishers Council (EPC) sent out a message that Giorgos Grammatikakis MEP (S&D, Greece), passed on to his colleagues to demonstrate the myths surrounding this reform. On 27 June, the IFPI (musical industry) boasted the support of 57 organisations in favour of the JURI committee's negotiating mandate.
At the other end of the spectrum, with the exception of the Pirates Party MEP, Julia Reda (Greens/EFA, Germany), who supports freedom on the Internet, the detractors of the reform, were more discreet. They were not, however, any less active, as borne out by a message from Google drafted ahead of the judicial affairs committee vote. In this document, of which EUROPE has obtained a copy, the director of Google's strategic relations, Madhav Chinnappa, calls on newspaper publishers to take part in Google’s Digital Information Initiative (DII), which provides financial support for the digital information transition (€150 million over three years), to directly contact MEPs. Madhav Chinnappa informed The Financial Times that this message aimed to keep the members of the DII up to speed regarding reform developments.
With just a few days away from the vote, it is difficult to say what the result will be. According to the information we have received, some Austrian EPP MEPs (from rapporteur, Axel Voss's group) could have “questions” about article 13 on the value gap. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)