NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Deadlock between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament
----- Forwarded message from David Farber <dave@farber.net> ----- Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:29:54 -0400 From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: [IP] deadlock between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament Reply-To: dave@farber.net To: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com> Begin forwarded message: From: Sandra Keegan <sandra.keegan@gmail.com> Date: June 18, 2009 5:27:54 AM EDT To: dave@farber.net Subject: correction to my email message of yesterday Dave, Since you have not published my email of yesterday, could you please use the text below if you decide to publish, which failed to refer to the deadlock between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament plus a couple of small edits. And please delete this intro. thanks. Dave, For IP, if you wish. I have reported previously on the deadlock between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament (EP) which rejected, during its last plenary in May, the principle of "three strikes you're out" for alleged violations of copyright online, a principle that was suggested for inclusion by France and the UK in the EU telecoms package. The EP is in recess due to recent elections. It will reconvene in July. When it reconvenes, the ball will be in the Council of Minister's court to convoke a conciliation procedure within six weeks, after which the two institutions will have six more weeks within which to come to an agreement on a legislative text, or else the entire set of legislative text lapses. (There is scope for separating the directives and adopting some but not all. However, without the framework directive, the other directives would have little meaning. There is also an option for either the EP or the Council to request a further six weeks extension.) The rejection by the EP of the French-inspired copyright infringement provision (the French version of which has been invalidated by the French Constitutional Court) for the telecoms package was also opposed by the European Commission, so it would have required unanimity for the Council of Ministers to adopt it over the Commission's opposition, which it could not have done, unless there was an agreed version of the law between the EP and the Council, which clearly there wasn't and isn't. In other words, one could say that the proposed copyright provision - "three strikes and the user is cut off" - has two strikes against it: opposition by the EP and by the European Commission, which tables the legislation but does not adopt it, and whose views about the acceptability of changes to its proposal affect the margin by which it must be adopted in Council (majority or unanimity). There is no such thing (strictly speaking) as a "third reading"; rather it is a high stakes negotiation with a ticking clock in which both sides stand to lose face if the legislation lapses for lack of agreement between the two legislative institutions. The EU telecoms package of 2002 was also adopted in final form in the context of such a conciliation procedure. The EP has considerable leverage (often coupled with popular support) and the Council usually has to compromise to avoid a disastrous public relations outcome (in that the EP is directly elected and the Council is composed of the representatives of the members of national governments, nationally elected by not directly to an EU institution). On limitations (what Mike Kiely referred to as "net discrimination clauses"), the current and working version (and likely final version if the package is adopted since there is no disagreement on this between the institutions) of the texts requires disclosure by a service or network provider to its customers when it imposes "conditions limiting access to and/or use of services and applications, where such conditions are allowed under national law, in conformity with Community law". This is a form of mandated transparency for users to know what limitations their services operate under. It seems to legitimate a number of controversial practices which have been much discussed in comments by IP'ers. Mike's suggestion that the Commission be required to recognise that the internet and internet technologies are capable of providing functional equivalents to legacy telecom services before being allowed to have a say in the governance of ICANN has been overtaken by events. The Commission's agenda for ICANN is settled and is supported by the governments of the Member States of the EU, who see the governance of ICANN as an important political issue. Whether or not the internet and its technologies offer functional alternatives to legacy telecom services is largely irrelevant to this agenda in the Commission's view. Moreover, and regrettably, the service within the Commission dealing with telecoms policy development is quite separate from the services that deal with and develop internet policies. Regards, Sandra Keegan ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message -----