ACTA is No Done Deal!

Paris, October 4th 2010 – The spokesperson for the Trade European Commissioner has announced Saturday October 2nd, that all parties have reached an agreement on ACTA. This is one more example of how the secrecy of this negotiation permits all manoeuvres to deceive citizens and Members of Parliaments. La Quadrature du Net calls all European citizens to alert their MEPs and National MPs about the need to monitor closely the rest of this negotiation and prepare to reject its by-product.

John Clancy, the spokesperson for Commissioner Karel de Gucht has announced Friday the completion of the ACTA negotiation. In order to fake a transparent process, the negotiating parties will soon publish the agreement. However, it appears from declaration from other parties¹http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6910AO20101002 that no deal has been reached, but just “progress made on all issues”. The presence of geographical indications²Europe insists for geographical indications –Protected designation of origin which cover, for instance, camembert, parmesan or champagne– to be protected by ACTA, whereas the US categorically opposes their inclusion, see http://www.laquadrature.net/en/acta-hanging-on-a-camembert in the text has for instance apparently not been settled. The aim of this premature announcement of a deal is of course to install the impression that ACTA is a done deal, that Parliaments have no other choice than to accept it without any possibility to modify it.

The negotiating parties will soon publish the newly agreed text. We will scrutinize with particular care the sections that appeared in previous leaked versions to be the most dangerous for fundamental freedoms on the Internet, access to health and access to knowledge. Without further ado, La Quadrature du Net calls all European citizens to contact the Members of their National parliament and of the European Parliament in order to alert them. Call your representatives to resist the pressure that will be exerted on them to adopt a text produced in a negotiation from which they were totally excluded, as all European citizens.

“The club of like-minded countries negotiating the ACTA agreement have not yet reached an agreement. If adopted, ACTA will exert a harmful influence on the global framework of rights of expression, communication, acces to knowledge and access to health. It will leave the MEPs and members of National Parliaments with a historical choice: blessing this circumvention of democracy or affirming that law is produced by elected representatives“, declares Philippe Aigrain, founder of La Quadrature du Net.

Jérémie Zimmermann, founder of La Quadrature du Net adds: “Members of the European Parliament will have to stand for the position they took by adopting Written Declaration 12³http://www.laquadrature.net/en/european-parliament-vs-acta-rejection-is-the-only-option. One can not leave the regulation of our freedoms, of the education of all, and of the health of citizens of poorer countries to the care of opaque, private club negotiations.”