Strasbourg plenary session 6-9 September

On Wednesday MEPs debated anti-counterfeiting agreement with trade commissioner Karel De Gucht. At less than one month from "the end of the game" many questions remain open, and the commissioner announced a possible withdraw of the EU from the deal. Why people remain unconvinced? Read the opinions of the MEPs and EP Facebook fans.

ACTA is a planned new multilateral agreement between the EU and other countries such as the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and Mexico aimed at combating infringements of intellectual property rights, for example the piracy of music, films and clothing.

Full transparency

By Thursday, a majority of MEPs had signed a written declaration calling on the Commission to make all documents relating to the ongoing negotiations publicly available. A declaration supported by more than half the total number of MEPs is deemed to represent the official position of Parliament.

The declaration argues that the agreement should not impose harmonisation of EU copyright, patent or trademark law nor weaken fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy.

Access to safe medicines

It emphasises that economic and innovation risks must be evaluated before introducing criminal sanctions where civil measures are already in place.  In addition, ACTA should not harm global access to legal, affordable and safe medicines.

Plenary debate

In the plenary debate on 8 September, Commissioner Karel de Gucht reassured MEPs that ACTA would not be "about checking on the content of travellers’ laptops or computers", and would "not lead to limitation of civil liberties or harassment of consumers".

Many MEPs showed their opposition to the confidentiality of the negotiations and the vagueness of the text. Socialist MEP Kader Arif told the House that "I want to repeat, I am not happy about the secrecy of the negotiations, want more transparency".

Green MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht said the "agreement is extremely unclear and I think that it's going to undermine EU legislation at the end of the day".

Daniel Caspary fro the European People's Party said that "champagne has to be protected as much as Coca-Cola" in a reference to issues related to the origin of famous trade marks.  

Mr De Gucht also said ACTA would not hamper access to generic medicines. As to transparency, he promised that the Commission would continue to keep Parliament abreast of the negotiations.

Some reactions from Parliament's Facebook fans

Nick Kossifidis: "No agreement should be discussed behind closed doors, not from the people I voted to represent me. With no public feedback and control this is how "agreements" end up."

Neville Bezzina: "ACTA is NOT about counterfeiting. It is about extending copyright enforcement and protecting obsolete business models that failed to adapt to the Internet. Also, the Internet enforcement chapter is still mostly based on the U.S. DMCA (US copyright law) and I find it terrible."

Florian Leppla: "This treaty is much more about copyright enforcement than about fake handbags (=counterfeiting). Btw I don't agree that fighting "piracy" is vital for industry and consumers. This is what copyright holders have make us to believe".

Background

Parliament adopted a resolution last March calling for the negotiations to be transparent. MEPs demanded then that no personal searches should be conducted at EU borders and that the agreement should not introduce any kind of "three strikes" internet disconnection as a penalty for three online copyright infringements.

The 10th round of ACTA negotiations was held in Washington from 16 to 20 August this year and the next round will take place in Tokyo from 23 September to 1 October.