The EU Commission, Brussels
I am planning to ask a written question on ACTA to the Commission, and ask if they intend to respect what was agreed in the Telecoms Package.
Here is a draft for the question:
In the recently concluded conciliation on the Telecoms Package, it was decided that no measures restricting end-users’ access to the internet may be taken unless they are appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society, and never without a prior fair and impartial procedure that includes the right to be heard and respects the presumption of innocence and the right to privacy.
Are the proposals currently being discussed in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations fully in line with the provisions that were agreed in the conciliation on the Telecoms Package? If not, when and how will the Commission redress any incompatibilities of the ACTA?
Comments? Are the any ways to sharpen the question, or make it more difficult for the Commission to avoid giving a proper answer?
…………
Andra bloggar om: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik, telekompaketet
Christian Engström, former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for Piratpartiet, Sweden
Christian Engström, Pirat 
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Pingback av Glyn Moody (glynmoody) 's status on Sunday, 15-Nov-09 12:32:15 UTC - Identi.ca — 15 november 2009 @ 13:32
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Trackback av uberVU - social comments — 15 november 2009 @ 13:36
You could ask if it really must be secret for all others than the media industry.
Kommentar av Anders — 15 november 2009 @ 13:59
Digged on: http://digg.com/political_opinion/Question_on_ACTA_and_the_Telecoms_Package
My Digg history: http://digg.com/users/sunurb01/history
Regards, Urban
Kommentar av Urban Sundström — 15 november 2009 @ 14:00
Both under the current Treaty (art 133.3) and under the Lisbon Treaty (art 207), ”The Council and the Commission shall be responsible for ensuring that the agreements negotiated are compatible with internal [Community / Union] policies and rules.”
typo: ”the *of* presumption of innocence”
Kommentar av Ante Wessels — 15 november 2009 @ 14:04
Could it be that the reason they (apparently) caved on 138 was that they knew this was coming and that a treaty-with-a-foreign-power trumps directives?
(Having treaties trump the law sounds like a bad idea)
Kommentar av Anders Eurenius — 15 november 2009 @ 14:06
A suggestion to amend the last paragraph.
1. Are the proposals currently being discussed in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations fully in line with the provisions that were agreed in the conciliation on the Telecoms Package? If not, when and how will the Commission redress any incompatibilities of the ACTA?
2. Can the Commission present a feasability study showing what synergy effects that the Commission expects with the implementation of the telecom package, ACTA and IPRED/IPRED2 regarding both the rights of individuals, as well as the protection of the rights for SMBs and comunity driven software projects, to compete on equal terms with large corporations when issues that concern IP litigations are given to non competent entity’s?
For both ACTA and IPRED, the ”enforcing entity” will not take into account if the IP protection that is claimed for the alleged infringement, will hold in a IP litigation.
And some OT, when the Commission moves from the somewhat ridiculous to the truly absurd.
The European Commission is discussing harmonisation of national rules governing access to mortgages after the financial crisis exposed the excessive risks taken by credit institutions in the housing market.
It suggests putting a 40% cap on the loan-to-value indicator, which establishes what percentage of the value of a house can be lent by a bank to a buyer.
Maybe also worth a question like, ”how will this effect Swedish house owners” and ”will the Commission extend this risk evaluations into other areas”?
Furthermore, I think that Sweden should follow France, Germany, Japan & Spain and ratify UN treaty No.16.
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance
Kommentar av Sjöholm — 15 november 2009 @ 14:50
See the third comment by the user Hook (about the transparency of WIPO treaty negotiations) to this blog post by Michael Geist. Compare that to the transparency of ACTA negotiations. Maybe that could be something to ask about as well. Also it would be interesting to hear whether EU representatives are trying to undermine WIPO as a forum for these matters.
Kommentar av Tor — 15 november 2009 @ 15:27
This is interesting too:
Lisbon 218.10 ”The European Parliament shall be immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure.”
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/showPage.aspx?id=1296&lang=en
This goes further than the earlier Nice Treaty (”The European Parliament shall be immediately and fully informed of any decision under this paragraph concerning the provisional application or the suspension of agreements, or the establishment of the Community position in a body set up by an agreement.” TEC 300.2)
With ACTA, only the EP Trade Committee was informed, it received secondary texts. That is not immediately and fully informing the whole Parliament.
So starting with Dec 1, the Parliament has to receive ALL documents. The real ones.
”Are the proposals currently being discussed in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations fully in line with the provisions that were agreed in the conciliation on the Telecoms Package?”
You should be able to check this yourself soon…
For more on Lisbon & ACTA, see http://action.ffii.org/acta/lisbon
Kommentar av Ante Wessels — 15 november 2009 @ 18:21
@Anders
Not only the media industry have seen the ACTA documents. Here is a list:
http://keionline.org/node/660
My hope is with William Patry, who is very tough. I think he might save the Internet!!
Kommentar av Mats Henricson — 15 november 2009 @ 21:58
Ask them to clarify ”Why exactly WIPO isn’t a better platform for establishing a treaty for dealing with counterfeit issues, since the countries mostly responsible for production of counterfeit are part of WIPO but not part of the ACTA discussions.”
Ask them to clarify ”What exactly is it that they hope to achieve with ACTA that cannot be achieved within WIPO?”
Kommentar av Rasmus — 15 november 2009 @ 22:40
”If not, when and how will the Commission redress any incompatibilities of the ACTA?” is the wrong question to ask. The solution is simple: ”Fix” the Telecom Package in the next iteration, so incompatibilities are eliminated.
Kommentar av PG — 16 november 2009 @ 0:02
[…] Question on ACTA and the Telecoms Package Here is a draft for the question: In the recently concluded conciliation on the Telecoms Package, it was decided that no measures restricting end-users’ access to the internet may be taken unless they are appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society, and never without a prior fair and impartial procedure that includes the right to be heard and respects the of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. […]
Pingback av Links 15/11/2009: CrunchPad Coming, Negroponte Speaks About OLPC | Boycott Novell — 16 november 2009 @ 1:03
[…] Publicerat av Sjöholm den november 16, 2009 Ett väldigt bra föredrag av Michael Geist om ACTA problematiken. Hittat i en kommentar hos Christian Engström […]
Pingback av Lissabon Fördraget for DUMMIES -Del III « Sjöholm's Weblog — 16 november 2009 @ 1:31
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Pingback av Roy Schestowitz (schestowitz) 's status on Monday, 16-Nov-09 02:08:31 UTC - Identi.ca — 16 november 2009 @ 3:08
BN quoted you in their links of the day today. Thank you for working for people’s right to share. Please ask the hard questions and press this issue until people understand that sharing is good.
Kommentar av twitter — 16 november 2009 @ 3:33
Hi Christian!
Sounds good! Thank you very much for your work!
A pirate Arrrr from gemany!
Markus
Kommentar av alios — 16 november 2009 @ 15:53
Hello,
I’m afraid that as long as ACTA is being kept secret, the answer will be along the lines of ”We will make sure ACTA is appliable in Europe.” My suggestion is to explicitly ask for the phrases used to make sure that ACTA does not violate citizen’s rights in Europe. And while at it, ask why ACTA is to remain secret. Who are the negotiators afraid of?
ARRRRR,
-boRp
Kommentar av boRp — 16 november 2009 @ 16:07
[…] Question on ACTA and the Telecoms Package « Christian Engström, Pirate MEP a few seconds ago from xmpp […]
Pingback av Tysk Gamlingen (grmpyoldman) 's status on Monday, 16-Nov-09 15:40:29 UTC - Identi.ca — 16 november 2009 @ 16:40
I think perhaps you should wait to send in the question until the telecoms package has been formally adopted both by the Parliament and the Council.
Then you don’t have to refer to the conciliation, but to union law.
In the mean time, you should look into the possibility of raising the question on information on the ACTA-negotiations pursuant to article 218.10 of the Lisbon treaty. Is not in force now, but I guess it’s going to be by the time any request is to be handled by the Commission.
And you should send in your questions in Swedish. You should be allowed to do that.
Kommentar av Johan Tjäder — 16 november 2009 @ 16:51
[…] Question on ACTA and the Telecoms Package « Christian Engström, Pirate MEP a few seconds ago from mbpidgin […]
Pingback av pego's status on Monday, 16-Nov-09 18:43:44 UTC - Identi.ca — 16 november 2009 @ 19:43
Christian: I like it as is. Short and to the point. You toss the ball over to them right away. You don’t want to say too much. You really want to find out what they’re planning. That’s perfect.
Urban: how many times are you going to post those long URLs, see they break the format of Christian’s blog? We all know where your site is. You don’t need to come here and advertise it every day. IMO.
Kommentar av Rick — 17 november 2009 @ 21:50
[…] en el ACTA. Como Cristian Engström, diputado al Parlamento Europeo, hace hincapié en [8], ACTA se refiere principalmente a la ejecución de Autor. Existe más material protegido bajo los […]
Pingback av #ACTA: Nota de Prensa del Partido Pirata Internacional — 8 december 2009 @ 4:35
[…] det nu vore så att Barack Obama faktiskt trodde och stod för det han sa, skulle inte avtalet ACTA vara under förhandling. ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, är ett avtal som ska vara […]
Pingback av Mina dagar > Leva som man lär? — 10 oktober 2010 @ 20:08
[…] Question on ACTA and the Telecoms Package (15.11.2009) https://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/question-on-acta-and… […]
Pingback av ENDitorial: Mobilizing To Stop ACTA | eddan.com — 14 oktober 2011 @ 20:15