On Monday 13 November, the members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) examined the SLAPPs initiated in 2022 and 2023 (see EUROPE 13220/10). The discussions were based on a study commissioned by the European Parliament's LIBE Committee and presented on the same day, which suggests ensuring that the future ‘anti-SLAPPs’ directive, aimed at combating SLAPPs, will be sufficiently ‘robust’ to resist attempts by certain Member States or third parties to exploit loopholes in order to take legal action.
The study, which covers the period from 1 January 2022 to 31 August 2023, identifies 47 legal proceedings against 102 individuals. Just over 44% had political or economic implications for third countries. “Most of these were proceedings against journalists”, explained the study’s deputy convener, Francesca Farrington.
“The commission’s definition would cover more than 80% of the cases identified. With the EU Council, far fewer cases would be affected. This would therefore be ineffective and the scope of the directive would be significantly reduced”, she added.
A number of MEPs questioned how the negotiations should be brought to a successful conclusion. “There are a large number of lawsuits brought by parties in power or governments with whom we, as Parliament, have to negotiate these provisions”, commented Jeroen Lenaers (EPP, Dutch), questioning how to ensure that the future directive will not leave room for the reluctance of certain Member States and result in watered-down legislation.
On this point, the authors of the report recommend that MEPs “ensure” that the legislation adopted will be “as robust as possible” and that the transposition periods will be swift. “We will have to take a close look at how implementation works in each Member State”, warned Justin Borg-Barthet, who is also coordinating the study.
In addition, some MEPs, such as Birgit Sippel (S&D, German), have expressed their fears about the arguments that the EU Council could put forward to make the text less binding. “Member States are very creative when it comes to achieving cross-border effects, but not here. We understand why”, she declared.
See the study: https://aeur.eu/f/9k2 (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)