There was not much doubt about it but the vote to be held at the European Parliament on the negotiating mandate for the judicial affairs committee (JURI) on the reform to copyright was, indeed, confirmed in the morning of 4 July. The vote will take place on Thursday 5 July and was called for by three political groups (Greens/EFA, EFDD and the GUE/NGL) and 84 individual MEPs.
On Thursday, MEPs will have the choice to either endorse the JURI committee's mandate adopted on 20 January or reopen it, which would involve the amendments being put to a vote during the next plenary session. The mandate is in favour creating a neighbouring law for newspaper publishers and an obligation for the “active” platforms to conclude licensing agreements with rights holders before publishing protected content (see EUROPE 12045).
Intense lobbying
Unsurprisingly, the lobbies are continuing to mobilise in Strasbourg, in an effort to influence the results of the vote (EUROPE 12050). During a press conference of pro-mandate MEPs, the rapporteur Axel Voss (EPP, Germany) affirmed that he had received almost “600,000 emails over the past two weeks”. Virginie Rozière (S&D, France) even went as far as mentioning death threats. She said that this went too far but was convinced that this situation demonstrated the correctness of the responses provided. Addressing the press (Axel Voss, Virginie Rozière and Pervenche Berès (S&D, France), Jean-Marie Cavada (ALDE, France) and Helga Trüpel (Greens/EFA, Germany) all denounced an unprecedented misinformation campaign.
Driven by the same conviction, the European Commission circulated a note pointing out that its legislative proposal would not result in restricting the freedom of expression. The Commission emphasised that the text neither affects the parody exemption from which the same interests benefit nor does it introduce a “hyperlink tax” or amend the current copyright rules applicable to press extracts on the basis of their size.
Despite these promises, the detractors are still up in arms. Wikipedia, for example, alerted all its users to mobilise and defend an “open Internet”. The organisation amongst others considers that, article 11 (neighbouring law for newspaper publishers) will complicate the task of its contributors when attempting to locate quotations for online articles.
Political groups divided
Behind the apparent unity between the speakers at the press conference, the political groups remain largely divided. The date of the 5 July could, in any case, work against the rapporteur insofar as Spanish EPP MEPs (who are rather in favour of the mandate) will be returning to their country to elect the President of Partido Popular. The S&D will not impose any voting guideline: according to Pervenche Berès, 96 MEPs out of 189 (mainly from southern European countries) will support the mandate. Jean-Marie-Cavada asserted that the ALDE will have 27 definite votes. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)