Karel de Gucht defends controversial ACTA proposal

Also read: www.euractiv.com The European Parliament on Wednesday discussed the ongoing negotiations on the multilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) with the European Commissioner Karel de Gucht in the wake of the tenth round of talks, held in Washington from 16 to 20 August. The aim of ACTA is to beef up the enforcement of intellectual property rights and combat counterfeiting and piracy. On 10 March 2010, the EP adopted a resolution calling for the negotiations to be conducted transparently. MEPs demanded that no personal searches should be conducted at EU borders and that the agreement should not introduce any type of “three strikes” internet disconnection as a penalty for three online copyright infringements. Parliament also insisted that ACTA should not affect global access to affordable and safe medicinal products on the pretext of combating counterfeiting.