Council exceeding mandate, say digital rights campaigners

The European Parliament, as well as digital rights campaigners, are expressing serious concerns over recent behaviour by the European Council, which, they say, exceeds the legal mandate of the institution.

The Council is increasingly ignoring normal legislative procedures in an attempt to bypass Member State law and impose its own interpretations on digital rights and access, through a new bilateral trade agreement with South Korea and a “suspicious” desire to kick start a third reading of the telecoms package, which had previously been stalled by Parliament.

Talks are due to start in a week's time on the scope for negotiations for the third reading of the telecoms package. However, the two largest groups in Parliament, the EPP and S&D, have so far not appointed anyone to take their places on the 27 member conciliation committee which is due to meet on Monday September 28. The names of the MEPs should have been known by Friday last.

The Liberals, Greens and Left groups have so far nominated members to the committee.

With time running out, Parliament officials have expressed concern that there will not be enough time for the full committee to form a united approach to the discussions, or to properly hear the Council side of the argument.

With the Parliament delegation needing a majority of 14 out of 27 members to have a majority position, one Parliament official noted that it is in the interests of the Council (which is eager to push quickly for third reading) to “know in advance” the members of the delegation from the “most powerful” groups. “The Council always have to know the outcome of anything in advance” is the sarcastic analysis.

For its part, the Council has further upset some sections of Parliament (itself split on the issue) by not fully explaining its reasons for pushing hard for a third reading.”We have got nothing from Council, except that they want a third reading, no legal position, nothing. They even refuse to accept the decision of the French court, which was backed by the Commission under article 138. Why have they decided this [second reading agreement] is suddenly unacceptable? We don't know”.

These sentiments are echoed by digital rights campaigners who today have noted that a new bilateral trade agreement negotiated by the EU and South Korea should in fact be subject to scrutiny by Member States if it is to pass into law.

The agreement could see the enforcement of copyright, patents and other forms of intellectual property law prosecuted under criminal law.

According to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), the text of the agreement, which has so far been kept secret, is having a seriously disruptive affect on the democratic process, as well as being legally suspect.

“It is rather shocking that criminal measures are now secretly being put in a trade agreement. And the secretiveness of the EU-South Korea trade agreement makes it impossible to assess its effects on access to the Internet, software and medicine”, the FFII said in a statement.

According to European law, the EU is not competent to finalise free trade agreements without the consent of national parliaments. Furthermore, Article 133.6 states that “agreements relating to trade in cultural and audiovisual services, educational services,and social and health services, shall fall within the shared competence of the Community and Member States”.