Three EU Parliament Committees Pan ACTA, But Its Demise Remains Uncertain
Three European Parliament panels vetting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement urged the lead committee to refuse consent to the controversial pact, they said Thursday. Opposition from the Civil Liberties (LIBE) and Industry (ITRE) committees was expected, but the Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee’s stance surprised one digital rights activist. But the close votes, and the European Commission’s determination to press on, mean the treaty is likely still in play, European Digital Rights Advocacy Coordinator Joe McNamee said.
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ITRE’s opinion stressed that ACTA fails to ensure a fair balance between intellectual property rights and the right to receive or impart information, the committee said. Lawmakers also worried that ACTA’s approach to intellectual property doesn’t consider the particularities of each sector, and that the lack of definitions -- one key sore point has been the failure to define infringement on a “commercial scale” in the digital chapter -- could create legal uncertainty for small and mid-sized companies, technology users, online platforms and ISPs, it said. ITRE members also said ACTA may harm efforts to make Europe a place for cutting-edge innovation and to ensure net neutrality, it said.
LIBE members rejected the treaty because it doesn’t comply with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the committee said. The author of the panel’s report, Dimitrios Droutsas, of Greece and the Socialists and Democrats, called ACTA “a paradigm of bad lawmaking” because of the flawed way in which it was negotiated, its “grave ambiguity” and the uncertain effect on human rights many of its provisions would cause for national legislation. One specific objection is the agreement’s potential to make ISPs Internet police, the committee said. Droutsas called again for a “real public debate” on a modern social pact for protecting intellectual property rights.
The JURI vote, however, “was a surprise,” McNamee said. JURI is the “most hard-line committee” on intellectual property rights enforcement measures, and “to my knowledge, it has never opposed any enforcement measure until today,” he told us. JURI’s vote shows that “even the most conservative Members of the Parliament now understand that ACTA must be killed, and that current conceptions of copyright cannot hold in the long run,” Philippe Aigrain, co-founder of French citizens’ advocacy group La Quadrature du Net, said in a statement. Pro-ACTA JURI report author Marielle Gallo, of France and the European People’s Party, “disassociated herself with the outcome” and a new opinion reflecting the committee position will be drafted, the panel said.
But no one believes the battle is over. The votes were fairly close, so ACTA isn’t dead, McNamee said. LIBE rejected ACTA 36-1, ITRE, 31-25, JURI, 12-10. The EC position is simple, said John Clancy, spokesman for Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht. The EC has asked the European Court of Justice to provide legal clarity over public concerns on fundamental rights and other issues, he told us. “We would thus expect all institutions -- including EP -- to await the court’s opinion before debating in full and voting,” he said in an email.
The EC hopes lawmakers will be less worried about their electorates after the next election in two years, so it appears that if the EU high court decides ACTA isn’t egregiously illegal, the EC “will push it back to the new parliament,” McNamee said.
The three anti-ACTA opinions now go to the lead International Trade Committee, which is expected to vote on the issue June 21, LIBE said. A final plenary vote is set for July, it said.