EU Commissioner Reveals He Will Ignore Any Rejection of ACTA 253
Dupple tips a story at Techdirt about comments from EU commissioner Karel De Gucht, who made some discouraging remarks to the EU International Trade committee about the opposition to ACTA: "If you decide for a negative vote before the European Court rules, let me tell you that the Commission will nonetheless continue to pursue the current procedure before the Court, as we are entitled to do. A negative vote will not stop the proceedings before the Court of Justice. ... If the Court questions the conformity of the agreement with the Treaties we will assess at that stage how this can be addressed." De Gucht also spoke about proposing clarifications to ACTA if Parliament declined to ratify it, which, as Techdirt points out, doesn't make much sense: "Remember that ACTA is now signed, and cannot be altered; so De Gucht is instead trying to fob off European politicians with this vague idea of 'clarifications' — as if more vagueness could somehow rectify the underlying problems of an already dangerously-vague treaty."
Keep trying til you get the vote desired (Score:5, Informative)
That appears to be how the European Union operates. The Constitution was rejected, so they turned it into the Lisbon Treaty. The Irish rejected the treaty so they held a second vote 6 months later, so they could get the "yes" vote desired. In Denmark they canceled the election and just acceded to the treaty automagically.
NOW it appears they'll use the same approach with ACTA: It matters not how the EU Parliament votes, we'll just rewrite it and submit it a second time or third time until we get a "yes". Of course the U.S. ain't much better: TARP failed the first time so they rewrote it and tried a second time. When the Supreme Court rejects a law as unconstitutional, the Congress simply passes the law a second time (minus the objectionable bits).
Re:ruling class gonna rule (Score:5, Informative)
No not really. When the ink was barely-dry on the Bill of Rights, our Congress and 2nd president signed a law that made free speech and press illegal (guess they thought the first amendment & their oath meant nothing). In response our 3rd president, who repealed the law, said liberty requires constant vigilance by the electorate else it will be lost.
the fundamental fault with the EU... (Score:4, Informative)
...is that only the Commission may propose law to the Council.
The Council must vote - usually by qualified majority - for almost(*) all laws to pass. And the ordinary legislative process means that, since Lisbon, Parliament gets to veto most proposals.
But once the law has been adopted, there is no way for Parliament to even propose, let alone pass, further legislation to amend or repeal the law. By contrast, the UK has one overriding law - the Westminster Parliament cannot bind itself. But the European Parliament /always/ binds itself.
The only potential salvation is that the Court of Justice may declare a law to be invalid - for example, because the EU exceeds its jurisdiction under the Treaties. But not simply because the people don't like the law. Even then, getting rid of CJEU judges is nigh on impossible, so a corrupt gaggle stay around until one by one it's time for them to be replaced (by agreement of the governments of member states).
(*) Creation of competition law is delegated to the Commission.
Karel De Gucht received bribe (Score:3, Informative)
i'm from belgium (was now living in colombia)
but Karel has a long dirty history of accepting bribes, dirty cash and laundering money
Belgium is this moment even more corrupt then sweden, those ministers have sold every possible governement building to 3th parties
they dont own the kings palace for example anymore but they rent it instead !!!!
there is an anti piracy organization called "sabam" there are big rumors and the chance is very big that they paid or going to pay Karel De Gucht for getting ACTA up
this means they will be able to suck more blood and money out of their victims legaly but in a more dark sinister way
sabam already pushed it that far you cant tell for example storytales from books to your children without paying the copyright fee to them and ofcourse they pay nothing to the original authors
Here's the guy's contact info (Score:5, Informative)
Please, let him know that what he is doing is wrong and that the european people do not want this. Here is his contact information: http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/degucht/contact/ [europa.eu]
Karel De Gucht
Member of the European Commission
BE-1049 Brussels
Belgium
By mail: Karel.DE-GUCHT@ec.europa.eu
By fax: (+32-02) 29 80899
Re:A country that is not a country. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As an American... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As an American... (Score:5, Informative)
In Switzerland they force you to own an assault rifle. By law.
Re:You mean he actually bought the European Court? (Score:4, Informative)
The European Commission is distinct from the European Parliament. European Commissioners have established a pretty good reputation for themselves as being for sale and not accountable to their constituencies. European Parliament nominally holds the real power, but democracy in Europe often turns into an uphill battle against corrupt commissioners.
The European Commision is also the main promoter of legalizing software patents in Europe, against the express wishes of the European Parliament.
Re:As an American... (Score:5, Informative)
Only the European Parliament which is democratically elected can actually enact laws.
ACTA is currently making it's way through the various committees which act in an advisory manner to the Parliament, said committees have no power and the Commission is merely saying that it will not withdraw ACTA before it has made it's way through the various committees and the European Court of Justice and will eventually be voted upon by the Parliament but if the result in Parliament is a negative vote that effectively kills ACTA within the EU unless the Commission renegotiates ACTA and sends it on another round through the system.
Re:It will pass in some form (Score:2, Informative)
It's worth pointing out that the United States incarcerates NEARLY as many people as the entirety of rest of the world *combined*.
Demonstrating an incarceration rate that is 6 times higher than any other country commonly held up as an "authoritarian state" does not help when trying to defeat discussions about authoritarianism in the US.