European Parliament Declaring War Against ACTA 307
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."
Contact MEPs! (Score:5, Informative)
Finally we have the chance to lobby elected representatives rather than aetherial bureaucracy! Don't let's waste it, guys...
If anyone in the UK wants to write to their MEPs about this resolution (you should), you can use this [writetothem.com] page to do so. I'm sure similar services exist in other countries, or you could just post the MEPs a dead tree version of your complaint.
Re:ACTA (Score:5, Informative)
You do know that many of the richest EU countries base their economies heavily on providing servies already?
We're not all ignorant savages outside the US.
The service sector is the dominant sector of the UK economy and also many of the other big rich EU countries.
Re:ACTA (Score:3, Informative)
The EU can portray itself as the hero to the people
You do know EU has a lot different system than US? First theres different political systems in all of their member countries, most of them who actually do have 6-8 different parties that have saying over things. EU doesn't need to portray itself as an hero to the people - it pretty much is the EU people, and that's why it will fight ACTA.
(btw, I've seen you shouting bullshit in many different areas, from running trackers to some china government and now this - do you even know what you're talking about?)
Also, are you really serious about us economy being closed? Did you forget China and Taiwan, the Indian coders and phone support, even us mail manual processing being offshored to Singapore? You can't be serious.
Re:Contact MEPs! (Score:5, Informative)
This is why the Lisbon Treaty is a Good Thing. The power of the unelected commissioners has been reduced and the EP can start to be useful. If they can only stop the ridiculous moves to and from Strasbourg, then the future looks bright (for the moment)
Re:Tabled? (Score:2, Informative)
It's the non-American English use of the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_%28United_States_parliamentary%29
Re:Tabled? (Score:1, Informative)
In EU (at least in the UK), tabled means putting a proposal up for discussion. A Bill is tabled.
It goes back to the days when the (Again in the UK, AFAIK), when the items up for consideration in Parliament were written on paper and laid out on a table in the order in which they were going to be discussed.
This is turn leads to the things called 'order papers'. If you watch the proceedings of the House OF Commons on TV and especially PMQ's, you will see MP's waving sheets of paper in the air. These are the 'order papers' which are the timetable of business that is up before the house that day.
Quite a different meaning than in the US where tabled means put aside.
Re:ACTA (Score:4, Informative)
Re:An American (Score:5, Informative)
Mind you, EU has two sides, parliament are the good guys in general (looking at a large number of cases). The commision (the bad side) is appointed by the EU, they fuck up pretty much everything. Parliament is elected and seem to actually fight for the people. So the shift shouldn't be too shocking. EU commision secretly fucking over the people w/ ACTA, parliament finding out and being pissed about it.
Re:ACTA (Score:3, Informative)
That's because US is a single country while EU is many different countries with several languages, and I would also like to keep it that way.
Regarding trade, EU mandates it to be open within EU countries. On top of that you can also freely live and work in any other EU member country. This is in my opinion the best compromise between independent countries and free trading, movement and living within EU area.
Re:Contact MEPs! (Score:2, Informative)
If it's so good, why were we denied a vote on the treaty?
At least the Lisbon Treaty got something right (Score:5, Informative)
It might be worth explaining for non-European readers that the balance of power between the (elected) Parliament and the (appointed) Commissioners shifted significantly as a result of the Lisbon Treaty, which recently took effect. There was plenty to worry about in that treaty, but this part, at least, they did get right.
A similar difference in opinion between MEPs and the appointed guys explains the recent oddities about allowing the US access to bank records: that provision was pushed through by the appointed government weenies literally hours before Lisbon came into effect, and the MEPs have been working to get it fixed since the change.
Re:Nitpick (Score:2, Informative)
Another small detail : Parliament has zero power.
If they have zero power, it is all the more impressive that they used that to stop the SWIFT agreement.
More seriously though: you are wrong. And especially since the Lisbon treaty went into effect on December 1st 2009.
We all have to back Eu Parliament in this one. (Score:3, Informative)
i told you Eu parliament wouldnt stand for this.
now we all need to gather behind the parliament, regardless who and where are we from. american and belgian, swedish or italian. even hindu, japanese, brasilian.
if you are from Eu or from an Eu candidate status country, you can officially petition European Parliament. this is a legal right. you can do it online, or you can do it with snail mail, as long as you put your name, address correctly. they all are valid and processed.
here is the link to official petition information page of Eu parliament :
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do?id=49 [europa.eu]
in decades now, a parliament is acting on people's behalf with no agenda. support your parliament.
Re:We all have to back Eu Parliament in this one. (Score:3, Informative)
if you are from Eu or from an Eu candidate status country, you can officially petition European Parliament.
Just to add to that: residents of EU member states and people who work for companies headquartered in the EU have an equal right to do so - not just citizens.
(as a resident of an EU country, but not a citizen, this is important for me, as it's one of the few political things I can do here - I'm not allowed to vote, but I can officially petition the EU parliament, and also get a say in some local affairs within the state of Germany that I live in as an employee of a company based here)
Re:An American (Score:1, Informative)
There are actually 3 sides:
European parliament (represents the people)
European commission (represents the good of the EU as a whole)
European council (represents individual nations by ministers from those nations)
Re:Nitpick (Score:1, Informative)
This is not true anymore.
Each revision of the Treaties has seen an increase in the power of the European Parliament in relation to the other institutions.
Today the European Parliament is firmly established as a co-legislator, has budgetary powers and exercises democratic controls over all the European institutions.
Parliament has three main roles:
1. Passing European laws – jointly with the Council in many policy areas. The fact that the EP is directly elected by the citizens helps guarantee the democratic legitimacy of European law.
2. Parliament exercises democratic supervision over the other EU institutions, and in particular the Commission. It has the power to approve or reject the nomination of commissioners, and it has the right to censure the Commission as a whole.
3. The power of the purse. Parliament shares with the Council authority over the EU budget and can therefore influence EU spending. At the end of the procedure, it adopts or rejects the budget in its entirety.
More info at:
http://europa.eu/institutions/inst/parliament/index_en.htm
Re:Nitpick (Score:4, Informative)
Re:ACTA (Score:1, Informative)
Re:ACTA (Score:3, Informative)
If the EU decided to standardize power outlets
Well, they actually did [wikipedia.org] (mostly). Switzerland, which is not part of the EU, doesn't use the same standard, and actually has a much better one (much smaller and simpler plugs at same Ampere ratings). Now it's a total mess in Switzerland, with the better local plugs and cables, and the European ones, and lots of adapters in between. (Switzerland is very small; if you need to rent trucks full of electrical equipment, chances are some of them will come from a neighboring EU country, with the EU power standards).
Re:ACTA (Score:3, Informative)
Despite this, Germany is still the largest exporter on *earth*. At least it was, China might have a slight lead now.
Germany exports more than the rest of the EU combined. The EU as a whole is definitely the world's largest exporter (double the US, and close to double China).