Germany Delays ACTA Signature, Wants More Discussion

First time accepted submitter willodotcom writes "Germany has joined Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia in delaying their signing of ACTA, citing 'time to carry out further discussions' as the reason."

Comments

Very reasonable

[i kan reed]

I never grasped how copyright changes could be considered legally urgent. This doesn't mean the treaty will be blocked(it won't be), but at least Germany is taking their time.

Re:Very reasonable

[dkleinsc]

If they don't act quickly, it's conceivable that Steamboat Willie might be legally distributed to people within the United States. The horror!

Re:Very reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so sceptical please.

Your democratic checks and balances might be absolutely fucked beyond all hope, to the extent that you live under a corporatocracy, but that isn't the case here.
Besides, the element of surprise is gone. All further attempts are going to be highly scrutinised, and there are countries that will never sign.

Re:Very reasonable

[rtfa-troll]

And if you identify everyone who attends these meetings and concentrate on getting rid of them you will have struck a very big blow for clearing up politics generally. There are very few issues which as clearly come out as big corporation vs. people. Even better is that in this case it isn't because there are no big corporations on our side, just because they are new corporations which haven't yet worked out how to do corruption (that's why Microsoft is on the other side). This is a really really worthwhile cause and making a list of everyone who ever collaborated with the RIAA, MPAA and big media over this and following up on it to the end could set back the corporate control of government by decades.

Re:Very reasonable

[Joce640k]

The European Parliament (at the top of the food chain) is already deeply suspicious of what the Commision is doing with ACTA and asked them to clean their act up in March of last year.

Some quotes from the report:

2. Expresses its concern over the lack of a transparent process in the conduct of the ACTA negotiations, a state of affairs at odds with the letter and spirit of the TFEU; is deeply concerned that no legal base was established before the start of the ACTA negotiations and that parliamentary approval for the negotiating mandate was not sought;

3. Calls on the Commission and the Council to grant public and parliamentary access to ACTA negotiation texts and summaries, in accordance with the Treaty and with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents;

4. Calls on the Commission and the Council to engage proactively with ACTA negotiation partners to rule out any further negotiations which are confidential as a matter of course and to inform Parliament fully and in a timely manner about its initiatives in this regard; expects the Commission to make proposals prior to the next negotiation round in New Zealand in April 2010, to demand that the issue of transparency is put on the agenda of that meeting and to refer the outcome of the negotiation round to Parliament immediately following its conclusion;

5. Stresses that, unless Parliament is immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations, it reserves its right to take suitable action, including bringing a case before the Court of Justice in order to safeguard its prerogatives;

6. Deplores the calculated choice of the parties not to negotiate through well-established international bodies, such as WIPO and WTO, which have established frameworks for public information and consultation;

7. Calls on the Commission to conduct an impact assessment of the implementation of ACTA with regard to fundamental rights and data protection, ongoing EU efforts to harmonise IPR enforcement measures, and e-commerce, prior to any EU agreement on a consolidated ACTA treaty text, and to consult with Parliament in a timely manner about the results of the assessment;

I'm pretty sure the Commission hasn't done any of that, so if the Parliament gets involved again it's doomed. Hopefully this weekend's protests will help get that done.

Re:Very reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

ACTA is treated as a "mixed treaty" in the EU, which means that according to the rules of procedure it has to be ratified by the European parliament _and_ all of the national parliaments in order to be valid anywhere. If it doesn't pass in Germany (or some other member state) it doesn't pass anywhere in the EU. At all.

Re:USA

[lennier1]

I heard they have some oil in the North Sea ... ;)

OK, so...

[jamstar7]

They talk about this 'treaty' for months behind closed doors, cross all the i's, dot all the t's, get ready to roll it out, pick up on the groundswell protest against it, and NOW they say they need more discussion on it? Talk about spindoctoring at its finest...