ACTA in European Parliament committees: Legal Affairs (JURI)

After the roundup of ACTA blog posts in Finnish, Swedish or English on Grahnlaw Suomi Finland, IPR trade protection: ACTA controversy, I have published two recent updates about the agreement in the European Union:

Grahnlaw (EN): ACTA update (in part) (22 January 2012)

Grahnlaw (EN): ACTA in European Parliament committees: International Trade and Development (23 January 2012)

The Development Committee (DEVE) draft opinion by Jan Zahradil enthusiastically brushed aside all doubts regarding the anti-counterfeiting agreement.

Is it really this simple? Yesterday I found two new items to update my blog post. For your convenience, here they are again, with slight modifications:

La Quadrature du Net sees ACTA as the international counterpart of the SOPA and PIPA copyright bills in the USA. La Quadrature blogged about ACTA in the European Parliament both in English and in French.

European Digital Rights (EDRi) published a critical paragraph-by-paragraph assessment of what must be the DEVE committee draft opinion regarding ACTA.

Even if you do not buy the counter-arguments lock, stock and barrel, there are enough questions and references to merit serious thought.


JURI

The Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) is preparing an opinion for the committee responsible in the European Parliament, the Committee on International Trade (INTA), which offered us the timetable. If we look at the JURI minutes 19-20 December 2011, we find the following:

24. 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

JURI/7/06357
*** 2011/0167(NLE) COM(2011)0380

The following spoke: Marielle Gallo (rapporteur), Christian Engström, Alexandra Thein, Eva Lichtenberger, Antonio Caiola (Parliament Legal Service)

There is nothing specific about ACTA on the JURI draft agenda 25 and 26 January 2012.


Marielle Gallo MEP

Somehow the JURI committee, too, has managed to select a gung ho rapporteur. Marielle Gallo MEP is known for her unwavering support for holders of intellectual property rights.

The IP Policy Committee blog offers a background picture about the rapporteur in the previous committee discussion, as well as the legal and political doubts expressed by other participants: Shoving ACTA down the throat of the European Parliament.

There is a Spanish version of the article, published by the Asociación de internautas: Haciendo tragar con el ACTA al Parlamento Europeo.

Erich Moechel, on FM4 ORF.at, discussed the proposals of Marielle Gallo with regard to the customs enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR): ACTA wirft seine Schatten voraus.

Christian Engström, the Green (Pirate) MEP, wants the European Union Court of Justice (EUCJ) to scrutinise if ACTA is compatible with fundamental rights. He has blogged about the JURI discussion, as well as on several previous occasions about the anti-counterfeiting agreement both Swedish and English.

When Futurezone.at discusses the imminent signing of ACTA by Austria, the worries of internet service providers (ISPs) are highlighted, and these concerns are shared by the Green MEP Eva Lichtenberger.

***

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) remains controversial, but the two rapporteurs we have looked at this far seem to be on auto-pilot to bulldoze through the agreement.




Ralf Grahn

EU Stockholm Programme Action Plan: European judicial culture needed?

According to the final draft agenda for the Strasbourg session 22 to 25 November 2010, Monday 22 November the European Parliament plenary is going to discuss the Action Plan Implementing the Stockholm Programme and on Tuesday 23 November the EP is going to vote (pages 3 and 9).

In the background we have the five year strategic guidelines adopted by the European Council in December 2009, with the definitive version published in the Official Journal of the European Union in May (OJEU 4.5.2010 C 115/1):

The Stockholm Programme — An open and secure Europe serving and protecting citizens

Based on the guidelines, we have the action plan to implement the strategic guidelines, proposed by the European Commission in April:

Communication from the Commission: Delivering an area of freedom, security and justice for Europe's citizens - Action Plan Implementing the Stockholm Programme; Brussels, 20.4.2010 COM(2010) 171 final

We also know that the Commission's monitoring system PreLex loses the traces of the action plan after the sour conclusions by the JHA Council 3 June 2010.

Before the Stockholm Programme was adopted, the European Parliament tried to make its voice heard a year ago, when it voted a resolution:

European Parliament resolution of 25 November 2009 on the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council – An area of freedom, security and justice serving the citizen – Stockholm programme; P7_TA(2009)0090 (procedure 2009/2534(RSP) )

(Yesterday I presented a few extracts of the 25 November 2009 EP resolution relevant to citizens and enterprises, in Finnish on my trilingual blog Grahnlaw Suomi Finland.)


Citizens and businesses

This time around the European Parliament decided to take a closer look at legal issues relevant to EU citizens and businesses active across borders, in an own-initiative report:

Report on civil law, commercial law, family law and private international law aspects of the Action Plan Implementing the Stockholm Programme; A7-0252/2010, 24.9.2010 Committee on Legal Affairs, Rapporteur: Luigi Berlinguer (procedure 2010/2080(INI) ) (20 pages)


European judicial culture

Even if the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) congratulates the Commission on its ambitious proposed action plan, the report calls for reflection on the future of the area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ).

Interestingly, the JURI committee takes a very long term view. The beginning of the report is heavily laden with suggestions for discussions and exchanges with judges and practitioners, representatives of legal education and training etc. in order to nurture a European judicial culture.

Later the report discusses proposed actions with more immediate impact on mobile citizens, cross-border consumers and companies active in the internal market, but it may be more opportune to treat these initiatives in the context of the latest policy statements and proposals from the Commission, first collectively and later individually.



Ralf Grahn



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