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European Parliament All But Rejects ACTA
An anonymous reader writes "European Parliament today adopted Written Declaration 12/2010 which basically tells the Commission to all but drop the negotiations. From the article: 'Citizens from all around Europe helped to raise awareness about ACTA among Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) by collecting, one by one, more than 369 [of the MEPs'] signatures. With Written Declaration 12/20103, the European Parliament as a whole takes a firm position to oppose the un-democratic process of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and its content harmful to fundamental freedoms and the Internet ecosystem.'"
Really? They couldn't be bothered to count more than 369 signatures?
There are 736 Members of the European Parliament. 369 is a majority.
The 369 signatories (377 now) are all MEPs (members of the European Parliament). 369 is significant because it is a majority of the eligible votes.
The linked page is just one of the relevant pages - you have to follow the links on the left to get at the rest. Here's a couple of interesting pages:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Written_Declaration_12/2010_signatories_list
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/ACTA
WTF does "all but drop" mean? If you look at it grammatically, it means "to do everything but drop", which is the opposite of what the submitter implied.
"All But Rejects" in the headline indicated to me that the European Parliament had expressed its disapproval in every way short of a formal final rejection.
In my understanding yes the parliament now have more power to reject the commission, but it can't really stop what the commission is doing until there's a proposal on the table. This is as I understand it mostly a statement of intent that they will, because the way it's been handled.
What is likely to happen is that the commission will propose something, have it rejected, revise it again, get rejected again ad infinitum. They've been known to fight wars of attrition - or failing that - slowly giving in to demands until it finally passes with a small margin.
Long story short, I believe eventually they will pass some form of ACTA, but hopefully most of the bad bits will be gone by then.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Opera is based in Norway. Norway isn't part of the EU.
Nope. The EC has exactly two tries.
1. The EC submits the draft.
2. If the EP accepts, it's passed. Otherwise...
3. The EP rejects the draft and gives the EC a list of things they want changed.
4. The EC submits a new version of the draft.
5. If the EP accepts, it's passed. Otherwise...
6. The EC can try to reconcile with the EP and figure out a shared draft. If this fails...
7. The draft is dead and can't be resubmitted.
I think the EC could try to start a war of attrition with the EP but that could end with the EP just veoting anything looking remotely like IP legislation until the EC shuts up.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Power in the EU is not with the parliament, but with the commission.
This used to be the case, but is not true anymore, for almost a year now.