Acta set to fail after Europe's trade committee votes against it!​

Vote may herald the first time the European Parliament has written off an international agreement since 2008​

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Acta faces defeat - Lawmakers from the leftist Palikot's Movement cover their faces with masks as they protest
against Acta in Warsaw, Poland. Photograph: Alik Keplicz/AP​

The Guardian
Charles Arthur
June 21st, 2012
UK

European lawmakers rejected the global Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) on Thursday, signalling that the European Parliament may soon use new-found rights to derail an international agreement for the first time.

"This vote is the penultimate nail in Acta's coffin," Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green politician in the legislature said, after the European Parliament's International Trade Committee (Inta) recommended 19-12 that the European Parliament reject the treaty in its upcoming vote on 4 July.

The decision was the fifth European committee in a row to recommend against Acta.

The Acta deal, in the pipeline since 2008, aims to reduce intellectual property theft by cracking down on fake consumer goods and medicines and digital file-sharing of pirated software and music.

The European Commission has said the agreement would target large-scale operations which enable illegal digital file-sharing, but the move sparked protests from citizens and also from some governments, who said it would criminalise people downloading files for personal use.

It also triggered the resignation in January of Kader Arif, a French MEP, from his role as the lead negotiator for the EU on Acta: he complained that it could cut access to lifesaving generic drugs, and would restrict internet freedom.

Arif told the Guardian in February that the only remaining options were to accept or reject the treaty, because no further change to the text was then possible.

A handful of EU countries, including Germany, have held off signing the agreement while others have expressed concerns about its impact on their citizens. The US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan are among countries which have signed Acta, but none has yet ratified it in national legislation. A number of countries, including India and some African nations, have been uneasy about the implications of Acta's effect on shipments of generic pharmaceuticals – which have the same structure and action as branded versions – to their countries.

Lawmakers said the cross-party vote is a signal the legislature will reject the Acta in a final vote, the first time the European Parliament has written off an international agreement since an increase in its powers in 2008.

"This is about much more than just Acta. It's about the European Parliament acting as an independent and democratic institution," said Joe McNamee from the European Digital Rights lobby, EDRi.

Peter Bradwell, of Open Rights Group, said: "MEPs have listened to the many, many thousands of people across Europe who have consistently demanded that this flawed treaty is kicked out. This is the fifth consecutive committee to say Acta should be rejected. It now falls to the vote of the whole European Parliament in July to slam the door on Acta once and for all, and bring this sorry mess to an end."

The 31-member trade committee in the European Parliament agreed that the proposed agreement risked criminalising individuals who download files like music or films from illegal torrent websites.

The European Commission, which negotiated the deal on behalf of the EU, has asked the highest European Union court to decide if Acta infringes people's privacy. A ruling could take up to a year.

"By recommending the rejection of Acta, the INTA committee today has said yes to democracy and fundamental rights," said Raegan MacDonald, senior policy analyst at the US pressure group Access: "This is a crucial step forward in this long fight, and now we're closer than ever to burying this agreement once and for all." She added: "The movement against Acta has been a defining moment for the future of the open and universal internet. We're very excited about today's decision, but it's not over yet. Access will continue to work up until the very last hour until there is no more Acta left."
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Last minute update!

Fifth European Parliament Committee Rejects ACTA!​

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JUNE 21, 2012 BY MIKE PALMEDO
On the Net News

Today the EP Committee on International Trade (INTA) voted to 19-12 to recommend that the full Parliament reject ACTA. It formally adopted David Martin’s draft report on the agreement, which formally advises the Parliament to decline to give its consent to ACTA, noting that “intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties. Given the vagueness of certain aspects of the text and the uncertainty intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties.”

Four other committees of the European Parliament have rejected ACTA in recent weeks – the Committees on International Development (19-1, 3 abstensions); Committee on Civil Liberties (30-1, 21 abstentions); Committee on Legal Affairs (12-1, 2 abstentions); and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (31- 25 against, 1 abstention). On July 4, the full Parliament will vote on whether or not to approve the agreement.

Statements on the INTA vote follow

Sean Flynn, American University
The end of ACTA may also spell the end for the U.S.’s more aggressive demands for intellectual property in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. The U.S. demands in the TPP go far beyond ACTA on the most controversial subjects, including the evergreening of patents on medicines and regulation of the internet. As ACTA falls, it becomes increasingly unlikely that the TPP members, a majority of which are developing countries, would sign on to the same or higher restrictions on their domestic rule making that ACTA attempted.

MEP Marietje Schaake, INTA committee:
“With this vote my committee has given an important advice to the plenary vote in two weeks. The EU should reject ACTA. ACTA contains some troublesome provisions for policy areas such as internet freedom and access to medicines. By regulating several policy areas in one document, ACTA enforces laws in an undesirable and dangerous way.”

Jeremie Zimmermann, La Quadrature du Net:
The way is now paved for a quick and total rejection of ACTA by the European Parliament! With a political symbol of such a global scale, the way will be open for copyright to be reformed in a positive way, in order to encourage our cultural practices instead of blindly repressing them. Destroying ACTA would give us some breathing space by creating a political symbol of global importance: the Internet, in all its diversity, winning a global political battle against some of the most powerful industries and governments.

Peter Maybarduk, Public Citizen Global Access to Medicines Project
The politics of the global knowledge economy are shifting: from mercantilism to cooperation, from closed to open. The INTA vote shows that European politicians increasingly understand we cannot let healthcare and internet policy be dictated by a very few outdated corporate interests. Rather, we need forward-looking policies for technology and creative works that unleash our human genius. ACTA is a retrograde policing approach to the knowledge economy: it treats competition like criminality and the internet as a threat. The European Parliament must vote ACTA down.”

Ante Wessels, Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure
A huge victory for civil society, Internet freedom, access to medicine and knowledge, and innovative companies. But we are not there yet. There will be a plenary vote the first week of July.

Margot Kaminski, Information Society Project at Yale Law School
ACTA is the result of a broader US trade agenda that does not comport with European or international understandings of privacy, free expression, rights to health, or due process. The INTA vote is a laudable step on the way to European rejection of that agenda. INTA should be applauded for recognizing that the trade interests of a few US corporations are not the interests of Europe’s citizens.

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EUROPARL COMMITTEE REJECTS ACTA!​

Falkvinge.net
by John Moss

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Members of the Polish parliament wore 'Anonymous' masks to protest against the ACTA bill ​

Today, the final and ultimately responsible committee in the European Parliament gave its recommendation on ACTA. Its opinion was clear: Reject ACTA. This brings five recommendations to the European Parliament to reject and kill ACTA once and for all, with none against.

A lot of prestige had been building up toward today’s vote in the International Trade committee (INTA), which was about to give its recommendation to the European Parliament on the ACTA treaty. Six months ago, it looked like a no-brainer that ACTA would pass. Then, protests on the streets in Poland appeared, spreading through Europe like wildfire. The Polish government promised to put ratification of ACTA on hold, pending the outcome of the European Parliament. Shortly thereafter, so did pretty much everybody else. Things were up in the air all of a sudden.

So, all eyes on the European Parliament.

I have written before on why ACTA lives or dies with the acceptance of Europe: if two the world’s three largest economies do not accept a trade treaty, it does not exist. China (#3) is not a party to ACTA, and it is being pushed by the US of America (#2). If the European Union rejects it, the treaty is without practical effect.

So, again, all eyes on the European Parliament.

For an acceptance or rejection in the Europarl, one committee becomes primarily responsible for every issue, recommending a course of action to their colleagues. For the many issues handled every day, this is usually a very helpful process – getting input from the people most knowledgeable on the topic. For complex topics, another committee can sometimes join in, sending their own recommendation to the responsible committee in turn.

For ACTA, there have been four such advisory committees in addition to the responsible main committee. Those four were Industry, Civil Liberties, Development, and Legal Affairs. They voted on May 31 and June 4, and all voted to recommend a rejection. This was encouraging for the net activists, very encouraging, but didn’t really say anything about the vote in International Trade – the main committee – for such a high-profile issue.

There has been no shortage of stunts pulled that were, at best, questionable. Yesterday at 1800, the person responsible for ACTA in the European Commission (roughly the executive branch of Europe), Karel de Gucht, held a firebrand speech to the committee, telling them how to vote. He added that if Parliament votes the wrong way, he’ll just re-submit ACTA to the next parliament (!). He was rightfully scolded for that by some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) later, showing an unacceptable level of disrespect for the separation of powers and for the democratic institution of Parliament.

So this morning, the INTA committee gathered for its vote. Some industry group had managed to put up a poster across the entire door, urging them to vote for adoption. This breaks a very long set of very bureaucratic rules and raised quite a few eyebrows. The room was filled to and over capacity – TV cameras were lining the walls, and people were standing in the back and along the sides, all seats being taken in the quite large room. INTA had 32 items on its agenda, starting at 10:00, and ACTA was last.

When an issue is adopted or rejected in committee, the committee starts out from a draft report suggesting a stance it should take, and then, any MEP on the committee can suggest a change – an amendment – to the draft. The draft report in INTA said that the committee recommends parliament to reject ACTA (“withhold its consent”). Some MEPs wanted these particular words to be replaced by others, so there were some amendments on the table. The two first amendments said the exact same thing – replace the words “reject ACTA” with “adopt ACTA” – and the third replaced “reject ACTA” with “postpone a decision until the European Court of Justice has said whether ACTA is legal or not”.

The party group lines were quite defined. The positions had been established, the prestige had been bet, the trenches had been dug. Those in favor of ACTA were the EPP and the ECR party groups, comprising almost exactly half of Parliament, and those against were the rest.

INTA started out with 29 MEPs present, and everybody kept counting who was present to try to figure out which side had the majority. Early counts said that the for and against sides had 14 votes each, so there was frantic activity figuring out where the 29th vote went.

Then, mid-session, an INTA MEP with voting rights showed up, bumping the total vote count to 30. Lather, rinse and repeat all the frantic guesses about majorities for ACTA.

Fifteen minutes later, repeat the same thing happening all over again as the 31st MEP appeared in committee.

At 11:30, the INTA committee finally got to the thirty-second item on today’s agenda, ACTA. The first thing that happened was that the first two amendments, those wanting to adopt ACTA, were withdrawn.

This led us to the situation where there was not even a proposal on the table to adopt ACTA. It was “say no now”, or “decide later”. So ironically, the trade group who was breaking half of the rules in the book by putting the “adopt ACTA” poster on the outside of the committee door couldn’t even theoretically have their will.

Moment of truth. Amendment three, changing “reject” to “postpone”. The vote was called, the vote was closed, and the numbers came up on screen. 13 votes in favor of the amendment, 19 votes against it, no abstains. WE WON! WE WON!

…but wait…?

19 plus 13 is … thirty-two. There are 31 MEPs. There was one vote too many. The vote was repeated, but at this time, it was practically over: one vote less from either side would not change the outcome. The amendment would be rejected, and the draft report would be adopted, recommending the European Parliament to reject ACTA.

The new vote said 19-12. The amendment was defeated by 19-12, and the draft report recommending a rejection of ACTA was adopted by the same numbers.

Thunderous applause interrupted the session. WE WON!

So what does this mean? The ironic thing is that it doesn’t really mean much in terms of the adoption or rejection process. ACTA is such a high-profile issue that people are already decided, quite regardless of the committee recommendation. But it does give you an indication of how the majorities lie — and what the vote in plenary in about 10 days will look like.

In the press conference after the INTA session, the sentiment in the room was one of post-mortem. “Exactly where did this ACTA drive the crazy train off the nearest cliff?”. Even though the ultimate vote in the European Parliament plenary still remains, the vote some time July 2-5, the sentiment was clear: it’s over. (Hint: it’s actually not. Not at all. This is where we need to make our final push. Returning to that in tomorrow’s post.)

Everybody in the press conference reiterated at today’s vote would not have had this outcome without energetic and persistent activity from citizens, urging MEPs to oppose ACTA. Yes, that’s you: you should pat yourself on the shoulder here.

In the press conference, we also learn that the reason for the large majority in INTA against ACTA was due to Polish MEPs not following the party lines, but referring to their home constituencies and saying they couldn’t do anything but reject. This changed the majority from harrowingly even between adoption and rejection, to having a safe margin on the side of rejection. It is a reasonable assumption that this phenomenon will carry over to the parliament at large.

Thank you, Poland!

5-0 to the Internet. Now, on to the final vote in July and ACTA’s final dismissal.
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i hate this assholes, after hearing yesterday , that they earn about 13000 € in a month

and always trying where and how to get money from poor people *no*

 

it's probably in their job description, "make as much money from the ordinary people as you can"