Text tabled : A7-0204/2012

  Philippe de Villiers (EFD), in writing. – (FR) Our old francs used to display the following line: ‘Forgers will be punished by hard labour for life’.

Forged notes, like fake and pirated products, damage the entire economy.

The protection of intellectual property rights drives technical innovation and represents fair recompense for researchers and artistic creation. It is absolutely essential to defend intellectual property.

This anti-counterfeiting agreement negotiated by the European Commission is unsatisfactory in many respects. It deals largely with border controls, but the EU has done away with its internal controls and has not really strengthened its external controls.

Moreover, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) focuses on the spread of counterfeiting and clearly does not put enough emphasis on the counterfeiters themselves. In any event, it happens without them.

In short, ACTA’s legitimate objective is overshadowed by a poor method, a lack of clarity, overly diverse goals and, thus, uncertainty as to its effectiveness and consequences.