ACTA coming up in the European Parliament (INTA)

Today, most of the documents for the 29 February 2012 meeting of the Committee on International Trade (INTA) of the European Parliament have now been posted online.

Among the documents we find (Agenda item No 23):

COUNCIL DECISION on the conclusion of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Mexican States, the Kingdom of Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Singapore, the Swiss Confederation and the United States of America

(Council document 12195/11)

The agenda and other documents relating to ACTA are still missing, so there is still no official information about what INTA may discuss or decide at the meeting.

However, the Legislative Observatory Oeil anticipates that David Martin MEP – already one of the most widely known with a dossier to prepare – would be formally appointed then. See procedure file 2011/0167(NLE) on ACTA.


ACTA workshop

On 1 March 2012 INTA arranges a workshop about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

If the workshop is open, it would add a nice touch if the programme contained information for prospective attendants and for those who might want to follow the proceedings online.

The bare ACTA text can be found here (Council document 12196/11).



Ralf Grahn
speaker on EU affairs, especially digital policy and law

P.S. 1: For better or for worse, between the global issues and the national level, the European Union shapes our digital future and online freedoms. More than 900 euroblogs are aggregated by multilingual Bloggingportal.eu. Is your blog already listed among them? Are you following the debates which matter for your future?

P.S. 2: The petition launched by @Avaaz for the European Parliament (and the national parliaments) to reject #ACTA has already been signed by 2,354,856 netizens, but more are welcome until the anti-piracy treaty has been officially buried.

De Gucht merits ACTA rejection

We learn, although not from the website of Karel De Gucht, but from La Quadrature du Net, that the EU trade commissioner has written a letter to the members of the Committee on International Trade (INTA) in the European Parliament, accusing civil society campaigners against ACTA of misinformation or misrepresentation and telling the the MEPs why ACTA is such a great achievement (plus 10 myths about ACTA and ACTA arguments 25.01.2012 to give them courage).

No bridge-building from a belligerent De Gucht. A mixture of irritation and arrogance is perhaps the best description of how the trade commissioner views the worries and resistance from the citizens he is supposed to serve.

This has been the attitude from the beginning, and it looks like the way it is going to continue.

De Gucht speaks about the netizens, but not with them. They are wrong or worse. Period. He expects the European Parliament to do its duty by giving its consent to the Anti-Counterfeiting (and much else) Trade Agreement.

Indeed, many wild assertions have been made about ACTA, but the propaganda bulldozer demonstrates an astonishing lack of sensitivity and understanding of legitimacy.

On these grounds alone, ACTA needs to fail.



Ralf Grahn

P.S. Between global issues and the national level, the European Union shapes our digital future and freedoms. Multilingual Bloggingportal.eu aggregates the new posts from more than 900 euroblogs – for you.

ACTA in European Parliament committees: International Trade and Development

Yesterday I offered some information about the state of ACTA in the institutions of the European Union: ACTA update (in part). Now for some complementary information.


INTA

The Committee on International Trade (INTA) is the responsible committee in the European Parliament.

The INTA minutes 20 December 2011 (INTA_PV(2011)1220_1) offer us this decision by the coordinators (page 2/13) about the EP timetable during the committee stage:

- To ask the INTA rapporteur for ACTA to fix the timetable so that the first exchange of views takes place in February and the vote in committee takes place in April or May 2012.

The draft agenda for the INTA meeting 25 and 26 January 2012 makes no specific additions regarding ACTA.


DEVE

According to the draft agenda (item 6), the Committee on Development (DEVE) 24 and 25 January 2012 is going to have an exchange of views Tuesday about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement between the EU and its Member States, Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the USA (procedure 2011/0167(NLE), based on COM(2011)0380).

While INTA is the committee responsible (Kader Arif S&D rapporteur), the rapporteur for the DEVE opinion is Jan Zahradil (ECR).

The DEVE draft opinion PA – PE478.666v01-00, dated 6 January 2012, is strongly supportive of measures to protect intellectual property and welcomes the conclusion of ACTA, commending the Commission for ”having ensured that ACTA provisions comply with the Union acquis and that nothing in ACTA contradicts the obligations between parties under existing agreements, including the TRIPS Agreement”.

After four paragraphs of vigorous endorsement (and one other), the last two paragraphs of the DEVE draft fittingly note development concerns regarding the legitimate trade in generic medicines and access to medicines.


Update 23 January 2012: La Quadrature du Net has now blogged about ACTA in the European Parliament both in English and in French.

Update 2, 23 January 2012: European Digital Rights (EDRi) has published a critical assessment of the (DEVE committee) draft opinion regarding ACTA.


Ralf Grahn

European Parliament: Caspary and De Gucht debated new trade policy for Europe (EU2020)

You can now read the 27 September 2011 debate about the new trade policy for Europe under the Europe 2020 strategy (item 4), posted by the European Parliament in the original languages of the speakers.

We look at some of the main points made by two of the protagonists, the EP rapporteur Daniel Caspary and the trade commissioner Karel De Gucht.


Daniel Caspary, INTA rapporteur

The report from the EP Committee on International Trade INTA was highly critical of the communication COM(2010) 612. The rapporteur, Daniel Caspary, criticised the Commission for the lack of a rigorous analysis of the profound changes taking place in world trade and for failing to present a medium and long term strategy based on these developments.

The starting point for the EP own-initiative report was the trade policy communication from the Commission:

Trade, Growth and World Affairs: Trade Policy as a core component of the EU's 2020 strategy; Brussels, 9.11.2010 COM(2010) 612 final


Karel De Gucht, trade commissioner

The trade commissioner Karel De Gucht found the criticism unwarranted. In addition to the communication, he referred to the two Commission staff documents, which accompanied the communication:

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT: Report on progress achieved on the Global Europe strategy, 2006-2010; Brussels, 9.11.2010 SEC(2010) 1268 final (23 pages)

An assessment of the Global Europe Strategy adopted by the Commission in 2006, according to De Gucht.

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT: Trade as a driver of prosperity; Brussels, 9.11.2010 SEC(2010) 1269 final (71 pages)

Rigorous economic analysis as well as available long-term forecasts, according to De Gucht.

Commissioner De Gucht reminded listeners that 36 million jobs in the EU depend on our external trade. He argued that the Commission's new trade policy can generate EUR 150 billion every year, and more jobs at the same time.

De Gucht offered a brief overview of ongoing negotiations for free trade agreements (FTAs), multilateralism (WTO Doha, including the Least Developed Countries), access to public procurement markets, trade and investment barriers, access to raw materials and energy supplies and trade defence measures (anti-dumping and anti-subsidy).



Ralf Grahn

EP wants new trade strategy for Europe under EU2020

The press service of the European Parliament tells us the Result of votes Tuesday 27 September 2011.

We see that the INTA report, prepared by Daniel Caspary (EPP, DE), on a New trade policy for Europe under the Europe 2020 strategy (A7-0255/2011; procedure INI/2010/2152) was adopted by 526 votes in favour to 108 against with 9 abstentions.


EP accuses Commission of lack of trade strategy

The report from the EP Committee on International Trade INTA was highly critical of the communication COM(2010) 612:

Trade, Growth and World Affairs: Trade Policy as a core component of the EU's 2020 strategy; Brussels, 9.11.2010 COM(2010) 612 final

In the proposed resolution INTA did not mince its words, when it accused the Commission of failing to come up with an EU strategy for international trade and when it asked for a new strategy by next summer:

Parliament expected to receive a real future trade strategy, which took account of mid- and long-term developments and did not build on the false assumption of a continuing status quo on the world trade stage

1.  Welcomes in general the triple objectives of Europe 2020 of smart, inclusive and sustainable growth and the Commission’s Communication ‘Trade, Growth and World Affairs’, and urges on the Commission to present a forward-looking and innovative future strategy on trade and investment taking into account the new challenges of the EU;

2.  Regrets that many targeted goals of the Global Europe Strategy have not been reached as yet and would have expected a more critical analysis of the Strategy with a view to a better understanding of certain failures to achieve;

3.  Insists that the Union needs a coherent long-term trade strategy in order to take account of the challenges ahead and in particular of the major emerging countries; insists that such a strategy should be based on a thorough analysis of the current trends in world trade, the Union’s internal and external development as well as the diversity of European enterprises, their know-how and their technological advances; regrets that the Communication fails to deliver a profound forecast of how the ‘world of trade’ could look in a policy-planning perspective of 15 to 20 years; considers that this review should establish the Commission’s ambitions for its bilateral trading relationships over this period including a distinct geographical strategy, for example through the creation of new agreements or targets for eliminating tariffs and non-tariff barriers with its major trading partners;

4.  Asks the Commission to deliver such a forecast as a basis and to present a revised mid-and long-term trade strategy by summer 2012, as the Communication on Trade Growth and World affairs fails to do so;

Ralf Grahn