European Parliament Declaring War Against ACTA

An anonymous reader writes "The European Parliament is preparing to take on ACTA. A joint resolution (DOC) has been tabled by the major EP parties that threatens to go to court unless things change. The EP is calling for public access to negotiation texts and rules out further confidential negotiations. Moreover, the EP wants a ban on imposing a three-strikes model, assurances that ACTA will not result in personal searches at the border, and an ACTA impact assessment on fundamental rights and data protection."

Comments

ACTA

[sopssa]

It's getting heated up in my country too. People are demanding answers from politicians, but even they don't know what the fuck is going on. ACTA is seriously the kind of secrecy movement that should not be allowed. It's good to see we actually have some backbone. My image towards EU has growth a lot with this.

Re:ACTA

[girlintraining]

My image towards EU has growth a lot with this.

*cough* No, I think the EU is doing this as an act of self-preservation. Unlike the US, that has an economy that is mostly closed (despite what you may think, our import/exports make up only a small amount of GDP), most of the EU has an open economy. The ACTA would screw them a lot harder than the United States. The US is just looking for a way to justify backing out of various free trade agreements and the ACTA is basically a way of us adding tariffs to our imported/exported services by creating artificial marketplaces while maintaining the illusion that we're all about free trade. We've created an artificial division between goods and services because our economy has transitioned from producing goods to producing services. It's in our best interests, financially, to create an artificial framework now to ensure we'll get our cut when other countries' economies transition to this as well -- basically continuing the long-standing tradition of passing the production to poor countries and living on top of them by providing the services and support that ultimately control the means of production.

Quite clever, don't you think? The EU can portray itself as the hero to the people, but it's only delaying the ACTA and similar acts -- once its economy gets closer to being representative of the US model, it'll quietly resurrect. So they get to be heroes today, and tomorrow they're just "going with the flow", portraying it as the inevitable price we have to pay for economic progress.

Re:ACTA

[magus_melchior]

No, I think the EU is doing this as an act of self-preservation.

I've done my fair share of BS'ing/armchair-punditry, but I have to say that this is either grossly naive or overgeneralized. France under Sarkozy has been pushing 3-strikes legislation aggressively, even though it keeps getting killed in court.

And if the US backs out of its FTAs, that'd be akin to committing economic policy seppuku. Another commenter mentioned China, but do you realize how much we're interdependent with East Asia in general? 90%+ of the components you used to comment were either made there (China) or designed by a firm in that region (Samsung, LG, Sony, Asus, etc. etc. etc.). Now imagine what would happen if the US even thinks about going protectionist on these guys-- you'll see a collapse of the US consumer economy as we know it, because we've abandoned the idea of making goods domestically due to higher costs.

Tabled?

[Rysc]

A joint resolution has been tabled

Whose "tabled" is that? Is that "brought forward" or "set aside"?

Re:And the US is .. leading the PUSH for ACTA ...

[Vayra]

Having too much freedom for the people and too transparent a government is endangering the power of individual politicians as they can more easily be held accountable for their actions. This they do not like, and so they came to the conclusion that going back to secrecy and less freedom for the people is the way to go, as that would help secure their powers. Sucks monkeyballs, but that's what you get when you have people who think of themselves instead of the people they represent in power.