EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120625/12333619468/eu-commissioner-reveals-he-will-simply-ignore-any-rejection-acta-european-parliament-next-week.shtml

by DiabloD3 • 14 years ago

282 121 14 years ago

techdirt.com

sasvari2• 14 years ago

and (european) politicians wonder about people's disillusionment with politics and lack of identification with the european union.

shahidhussain• 14 years ago

We discussed this a little on Reddit[1] a while back, some of us fired off emails to our local MEPs on the topic, there was a small demonstration, but frankly we didn't make a loud enough noise to be heard.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/osobb/after_w...

Nursie3• 14 years ago

The commission needs to be neutered before the EU can be considered truly democratic. The fact that this guy can come straight out and say he's going to ignore court rulings and the democratic will of the elected MEPs with no fear of reprisals, because he's not elected, yet he can hold so much power ... it's sick.

paol3• 14 years ago

Sadly the parliament is essentially a powerless organ by design. The problem is that the european commission accumulates both executive power and most of the legislative power, where the later should lie with parliament.

The end result is that the parliament is basically a farcical attempt to give the appearance of democratic legitimacy to the EU legislative process, but the farce is transparent enough that it just ends up tainting the public perception of the EU institutions.

There are political reasons for this arrangement of course, but I don't want to turn this into (more of) a rant. [EDIT: I end up going into that in this other post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4161285]

Angostura• 14 years ago

The EP can impeach the Commission - unfortunately only the whole Commission rather than an individual Commissioner.

Silhouette• 14 years ago

The Parliament is not so impotent since the new codecision rules under the Lisbon Treaty and has been happy to flex its new-found muscles. Moreover, if the responses to my letter to my MEPs on this subject are at all indicative, most or all of the major political groups in Brussels are outright hostile to ACTA at this point.

I suspect De Gucht may have overestimated his influence here. He has also perhaps forgotten that his term of office is not so long and that the European Parliament could even hold up the appointment of the next Commission if it wanted to make a point about abuse of authority. (It did hold up the first Barroso commission in 2004, forcing a reshuffle of which commissioner was given which portfolio, so this is certainly not an idle threat for the Parliament to make, either.)

rmc5• 14 years ago

The European Parliament has been getting more power with every treaty change.

So the EP is the one that's accumulating power (which is right, but hasn't gone far enough yet)

beeneto3• 14 years ago

He didn't say he'd ignore court rulings. He told the trade committee (which isn't a court AFAIK) that advising against ACTA wouldn't stop the European court of justice from investigating its legality.

Nursie3• 14 years ago

He mentioned that he would try to weasel his way around it -

"If the Court questions the conformity of the agreement with the Treaties we will assess at that stage how this can be addressed."

s4ndb• 14 years ago

Don't forget about the European Council, the third power base in Europe, by far the strongest, and by far the least public. Could use some serious neutering too.

Of the three power bases, only the parliament is democratic, and it has almost no powers. I agree. The way we do politics in Europe, birthplace of democracy, is just sick.

facorreia• 14 years ago

EU is not supposed to be democratic.

Kudos• 14 years ago

And yet it has a democratically elected parliament.

nickik3• 14 years ago

Thats why the EU (in its current form) should never have existed.

vidarh6• 14 years ago

The issue here is that the EU currently is a de facto confederation.

The EU parliament can not be, and is not, the supreme legislative body for the simple reason that the member states are still sovereign, with the ability to withdraw (though there are some legal questions in some member countries about how that would be possible).

It is the same issue facing the US under the Articles of Confederation, where Congress was effectively powerless to do anything without full agreement of the states.

However the EU "worked around" this in part with the Council and Commission functioning as a sort of an "office of the president" (consisting of heads of the member states and the head of the Commission and a separate Council president) and cabinet respectively, with power delegated from the respective governments of the member states rather than from the parliament.

It is a "workaround" for the fact that a federal EU is currently entirely unpalatable to the electorate in most European countries to make the EU governable - ironically because people are worried about giving the EU more power, while the current arrangement is worse in that regard.

cabalamat3• 14 years ago

> It is a "workaround" for the fact that a federal EU is currently entirely unpalatable to the electorate in most European countries

I'm sure in every EU country, most voters would prefer it if the unelected commission couldn't overrule the elected parliament.

obtu• 14 years ago

My country, and I'm sure most of the EU, isn't sovereign anymore when it comes to transposing EU laws^W directives (assuming they regard a domain where the EU is allowed to legislate, I suppose). The constitutional amendment was done a little before the constitutional treaty tried for ratification.

DeepDuh3• 14 years ago

Don't you mean a ->federation<- ?

Switzerland is a confederation. Its 26 states have a lot of power, through the senate, state majority on national votes as well as sovereign areas like state taxes, education, state traffic. However, within boundaries, the Swiss national parliament can overrule state parliaments any day (and national people votes can overrule pretty much anything anyway).

RachelF• 14 years ago

The EU is not democratic. It goes to great lengths to avoid referendums by its subjects on whether they wish to be part of the EU or not.

If they do have a referendum and the result is not what the EU wants, another is held.

aerique• 14 years ago

Depends on the member country. Here in The Netherlands after an unfavorable referendum we just renamed the issue, put a new cover on it and pushed it through without a referendum two years later.

ajuc6• 14 years ago

I wonder if we could make some big demonstration in Poland just before the EURO 2012 semi-final matches. Or smuggle big banners to the stadium.

But they are just going to ignore it, right. No accounatability whatsoever.

mibbitier• 14 years ago

Good news. Strengthens the case significantly for the EU to be abandoned.

Jacqued2• 14 years ago

And where would that leave us ?

Massive recession in Germany, Bankrupcy for the southern nations, a few hurt nations (France, Italy, others) closing their borders to try to survive on their own, and the UK surviving as a dependency of the US. With fascist parties triumphing everywhere around (they are already doing 20%+ in a lot of countries, there are even nazis in the Greek parliament now).

And, of course, global economy hurting like never before, since a majority of it still happens in good ol Europe.

Yup. Let's kill the EU.

ajuc6• 14 years ago

Which are these fascist parties in Europe? Seriously, I live in Europe and never seen any. In most EU countries propagating nazi ideology is criminal offense.

kalleboo• 14 years ago

These "facists" and "nazis" are there as a reaction to the EU. They're the only ones people can vote for to express a negative opinion on the EU. If the EU disappears, they'll have survive on their actual ideology instead, and then they'll disappear again.

And regarding the financials, the EEA and Schengen are perfectly fine. Norway, Switzerland etc don't have significantly higher barriers to trade.

Personally I'm pro-european state. But it's dangerous having one as anti-democratic as the current EU, and I don't believe it's possible to change the current one, it needs to be torn down and rebuilt.

sbmassey4• 14 years ago

The 'OMG Scary Nazis, lets put everything under the control of a single unified state' idea doesn't appear to make any sense.

Surely if you're worried about Nazis taking over, you should be encouraging the existence of small independent nations, so that when they take over in one place, the damage is limited in scope.

Creating a federal European state is like giving the Nazis all the apparatus they need when they become strong enough.

Remember that in real life both Hitler and Mussolini came to power in countries that had been formed some 60 - 70 years ago from unifying smaller states into one.

CountHackulus• 14 years ago

You seem to have invoked Godwin's law. Perhaps try rephrasing your argument?

_b8r04• 14 years ago

Or we can keep it as is, undemocratic and non-functioning with fiscal union on the horizon all controlled from and dominated by Germany. I'm amazed no-one thought of that before!

fleitz2• 14 years ago

That's an argument of tyrants.

There are fascists in the Greek parliament precisely because of the actions (or inaction) the EU takes. If anything the facts you outline point towards getting rid of the EU rather than giving it more power.

inopinatus3• 14 years ago

No. It strengthens the case for changing the EU, it doesn't strengthen any particular argument for the future state.

Abandoning the EU today would be an economic and social catastrophe, since it requires the re-erection of barriers at borders over which massive free flows of trade and labour currently exist. Germany's exports would be annihilated, the central European labour pool would be stranded, and several reintroduced currencies would collapse overnight.

It equally well strengthens the case for increased federalism, towards a United States of Europe with a federal parliament that actually can curb the actions of the Commission, and a single central bank (rather than today's messy compromise) to correct the failed madness of nation states that can issue bonds but cannot issue money.

drcube2• 14 years ago

Why would eliminating the EU require re-erecting trade and migration barriers? That doesn't make sense to me. Why not keep the good and throw out the bad?

beeneto3• 14 years ago

Since I know techdirt always reports aggressively in favour of internet freedom I read the direct quotes first and the techdirt commentary afterwards. From just the quotes, Karel De Gucht doesn't seem to be saying anything underhanded, just that if parliament doesn't ratify ACTA it will be modified (presumably toned down?) and resubmitted.

I don't think techdirt's message "The european government is a corrupt puppet!" is supported by the evidence in this article. Personally the fact that every committe which has reviewed ACTA has advised against it gives me hope.

sasvari2• 14 years ago

just that if parliament doesn't ratify ACTA it will be modified (presumably toned down?) and resubmitted

ACTA can't be modified anymore, it is signed (yet not ratified in the EU)!

Edit: style

beeneto3• 14 years ago

Ah okay, so when he says "I would consider proposing some clarifications to ACTA" he's just blowing smoke - talking about making cosmetic statements about ACTA which would encourage parliament to ratify it, but wouldn't actually fix the abuse cases that come from the vague wording?

Nursie3• 14 years ago

Not really, my understanding is that the treaty text is now set in stone, so he can't really do more than embellish it, hence all the talk of clarification. If the text is to be altered then it has to go back to international negotiations again, which throws the whole process out by several years. AFAICT.

While it's not evidence that the whole system is corrupt, it is yet another in the list of examples of the appointed commission attempting to push things past the elected house via subterfuge or repeated attempts, and it leaves a bad taste.

vidarh6• 14 years ago

Exactly. He's not doing anything that isn't done regularly by any executive branch that actually believes the laws they're trying to pass are necessary.

He's saying:

1) They want to find a way to make ACTA work. Because of that, even if the EU Parliament does not agree with its current form, it makes sense for the Commission to move forward with the ECJ, because if the ECJ says its incompatible with EU law, it will need to be changed regardless if it is to be passed, and it makes no sense for them to negotiate a solution with parliament only to find out after that that the ECJ would strike down the whole thing on fundamental questions afterwards.

2) They'll try to find a solution that addresses whatever reasons MEP's give for voting it down (assuming they do). Trying to reach a compromise is hardly an evil fascist dictator method, but standard operating practice. At least it is in Europe, where we're used to having governments that actually cooperate to pass things.

Jacqued2• 14 years ago

We clearly need to rebuild European Institutions from the ground up.

I'm fully in favor of the European Union as a federal state but to achieve this it is mandatory for the European institutions to stop relying on country representatives or people who were just nominated and rely instead on elected people (and their representatives i.e. a prime minister for the European parliament for example), like in any proper democracy.

It is also a clear sign that despite all the efforts put out in the last few years, associations and companies that are willing to protect Internet freedom are not spending enough money and energy on actually doing it. Not nearly as much as the dying copyrighted and closed content industry anyway.

paol3• 14 years ago

I would love to see things move in this direction. Unfortunately we are in the minority (even among those who self-describe as pro-european).

LaGrange2• 14 years ago

The problem here is, that while it would increase the democracy of EU, it would also decrease perceived sovereignty of individual countries.

A lot of progress in EU seems to be hampered by OMG NATIONAL IDENTITY, actually, and democratization is just one of those.

ajuc6• 14 years ago

I don't understand, why having Commision that isn't elected makes EU members more suvereign? What would change for worse, if Commision was elected like Parliament?

rmc5• 14 years ago

Agreed. But the EP has been getting more and more stronger with each treaty change. Which is good. We'll just continue this progress.

el_presidente• 14 years ago

> It is also a clear sign that despite all the efforts put out in the last few years, associations and companies that are willing to protect Internet freedom are not spending enough money and energy on actually doing it.

That's because doing this would have the opposite effect. They would be inviting governments to take control of the Internet.

gorm• 14 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_deficit_in_the_Europ...

tete2• 14 years ago

Description of EU:

Parliament: Good Commission: Bad

msfd• 14 years ago

That guy was a shame when he was a minister of foreign affairs back in Belgium, creating multiple diplomatic incidents and controversies (with the Netherlands - calling the prime minister a mix of harry potter and a rigid bourgeois, the Congo, the jewish community, etc), it's no wonders he's a shame in the EU...

moe• 14 years ago

Truly the best democracy that money can buy...

When voting doesn't work, perhaps we should try a kickstarter? Groupon?

seclorum3• 14 years ago

This is why the EU is not in fact a democracy, but a benign totalitarian fascist state. Member states, do not, in fact, control the governing policies being enforced on them by their masters.

apk17• 14 years ago

And where do you think the people in the commission come from? National governments; what happens there is simply that stuff that couldn't be made to pass nationally gets readministered via the EU.

Besides, the EU is not a 'state'.

seclorum3• 14 years ago

Who voted for the EU President? (Nobody: He was installed by Heads of Industry from the member states..)

>Besides, the EU is not a 'state'.

Yup, and therein lies the problem.

SagelyGuru• 14 years ago

Come back Nigel Farage http://www.nigelfaragemep.co.uk/ All is forgiven!

Watch some of his videos laying into the commissioner(s) at the EU parliament. Quite amusing but it seems to be just what they need and deserve.

spindritf• 14 years ago

His site seems to be down, here's a Youtube channel with recordings https://www.youtube.com/user/europarl

hipponax3• 14 years ago

Do you realise that UKIP were about the only party that voted against the EU parliament's call to have the details of the ACTA negotiations made public?

davidhollander• 14 years ago

I'm not European but my understanding was that they literally vote no against everything as some sort of protest?

Their statement if this is the correct vote you are referring to:

"Whilst we as a group voted against the ACTA Resolution on Wednesday 10th March 2010, we did so on the principle that the ACTA Treaty itself should not exist in any form. It is a catastrophic violation of individual private property. Had we voted to support the Resolution, we would be recognising the existence of such legislation and on that basis we decided not to recognise the Treaty."

http://www.ukipmeps.org/mypage_11_ExpVote.html

digitalengineer• 14 years ago

Brussels is starting to look like Moscow. Check out this old Russian Guy that lived through the rise of the Sovjets talk about the striking similarities: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=m...

chris_wot• 14 years ago

If the GFC doesn't destroy the EU, then ACTA will. How unfortunate.

yaix• 14 years ago

The problem here is that the voters in the Netherlands and in France have rejected the EU Constitutial Treaty in 2004 that would have given the EU Parliament much more power. The "replacement" Treaty of Lisboa did not go that far.

But anyway, this is just negotiation what the dude is doing (although not very smart negotiation, imho). The ACTA is dead, it was rejected by a number of country governments, and the EU parliament will probably reject it too.

Btw, the commission is elected, but not directly. It is elected by the governments of the member countries, each representing the people of each country. However, it would be nice to be able to vote for those guys directly. But, because of language problems (english anybody? France? Germany?) that is not (yet) practical.

josteink• 14 years ago

Someone this determined to do something so wrong cannot be assumed to be neutral. This guy must be corrupt and on someone's pay-list.

It would be in the EU's interest to start an investigation of Karel De Gucht to determine if this person is bribed and if these proceedings is a result of corruption. The EU would be wise to do so for its own business sake and before it's perception as a democratic body is tarnished in favour of a US-led corrupt legislative-body.

If the EU loses its perception as democratic, chances are that the rich and populous democracies which funds it will be forced to stop doing so. If it's one thing the EU cannot afford right now, that is one of them.

PotatoEngineer• 14 years ago

He doesn't have to be corrupt; he simply has to believe that ACTA is good for Europe. If he's trying to circumvent various obstacles in his way, it's because he thinks they're wrong.

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

That doesn't necessarily make it any better.

jhdevos• 14 years ago

European commissioners have two undesirable attributes: * Far too much power * Low public visibility

If they perceive their job as "governing this part of the world without paying much attention to what lesser people are saying", then that is partly because we have defined their job in that way. (And, of course, that will attract the wrong kind of people).

Reform is needed.

Joeri• 14 years ago

He's currently under investigation by the belgian authorities for tax evasion. But i doubt he's actually been bribed in this case. He's the sort of guy who genuinely believes ACTA is not only desirable but absolutely essential.

_b8r04• 14 years ago

> It would be in the EU's interest to start an investigation

Unfortunately the EU's track record isn't very good in this regard[1].

> If the EU loses its perception as democratic

I can't speak for everyone but the EU is not a democratic institution (in terms of direct or participatory democracy) and some people understand this.

> chances are that the rich and populous democracies which funds it will be forced to stop doing so.

No, they're forced to fund it whether they want to or not. The entire Euro currency crisis persists because there is no organised or planned way for a country to leave the Euro. In any other situation the PIGGS would've left by now and could've inflated their way out. Instead the Eurozone countries in the north are stuck with the countries in the olive belt for better or worse and it's hurting all sides. Likewise, there is no documented and planned way for a country to leave the EU.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Andreasen#Concerns_over_E...

jcbrand• 14 years ago

You are confusing the European Union with the Eurozone (the EU countries that use the Euro).

Withdrawal from the EU is a right of member states. However, withdrawal from the Eurozone wasn't envisioned or planned for and therefore there is no organized way to leave the Euro monetary zone (Eurozone).

EDIT: Not all EU countries use the Euro and therefore part of the Eurozone.

anamax• 14 years ago

> Someone this determined to do something so wrong cannot be assumed to be neutral.

yes.

> This guy must be corrupt and on someone's pay-list.

No. True believers are far more fanatical/determined/etc than mercenaries. Money is far from the most effective motivator. (Proof sketch - mercenaries will switch sides for money. True believers won't.)

At least that's how humans work.

fleitz2• 14 years ago

Which is why mercenaries are generally much more pleasant to deal with than true believers.

horsehead• 14 years ago

Fuck the man!!

That's slang for "This guy is off his god damn rocker." People like this who have such blatant disregard for proper procedure should be castigated into humiliation.

accountswu• 14 years ago

There have been protests or at least a discussion about it in Europe; Western Europe as well as Eastern Europe. The US has already signed it without much problem. Surely the majority of Americans would not have wanted their President to sign it, but now that it has been signed it would take a lot more effort to kill it.

http://digitaljournal.com/article/318690 Op-Ed: Obama signed ACTA in violation of Constitution, say critics

shellox• 14 years ago

Well, the EU is already experienced with lobby work. It shouldn't be a big surprise for the most.

mjwalshe• 14 years ago

With my wonk hat on sounds like an MEP needs to put up a motion of "no confidence" in this particular Commissioner.

the MEP's aprove comissioners and therefore must have the ability to censue or remove them.

as "The Parliament may also block certain Commission decisions where there has been a delegation of powers to the Commission and may repeal such delegation of powers."

If a Commissioner directly states that they will ignore the will of parliment they deserve every thing they get

EU Commissioner Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By EU Parliament

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