European Parliament insists on openness in ACTA

The European Parliament seems to have had enough of the shroud of mystery surrounding the ACTA negotiations. The Parliament, with an overwhelming majority, adopted a resolution that calls for transparency. Of the roughly 700 Parliamentarians, only 13 voted against the resolution reports webwereld.

Besides the call for transparency, the resolution is critical about the potential for a three strikes regime. Such a regime should not be obligatory. In the case such a regime would be adopted, sanctions should always be imposed by a court. The document furthermore opposes the leaked clause that enables searching data carriers without being suspect and is critical of the fact that many countries are not included in the negotiations and the talks are held outside of the established institutions for international negotiations such as the G20 and the WTO.

European Commissioner De Gucht, who is responsible for ACTA, is surprised about the loudly voiced criticism. “The negotiations are secret. That in itself is not remarkable,” he states in a debate with Parliament. He states to take the demand for transparency seriously and to emphasise this in the next round of talks.

For a number of parliamentarians, this is not enough. According to them, ACTA is not only an IP issue, but also a civil liberties issue. They stress the importance of including Viviane Reding, who has civil liberties in her portfolio, in the negotiations.

The best quote until now comes from the Swede Christian Engström of the pirate party. He managed to find a glimmer of light in the otherwise tense discussions. “First of all, I would like to congratulate the Commission on having achieved what EU leaders have been talking about for decades. They have actually managed to get ordinary citizens interested in EU politics. (…) But having said that, I still feel I must criticize the method the Commission has used. The reason so many citizens are following the ACTA issue is because they are furious.”

11 March 2010