Planet FFII

The association ESOP from Portugal made available two papers of original research. They concern what they call an “artificial exclusion of Linux-based laptops”. I had the opportunity to see the study earlier. Both studies can be freely accessed from ESOP. It is not easy to calculate economic effects but ESOP applies their own innovative approach for calculating losses.

The first study analyses the national economic impacts of introducing a series of locally-assembled laptops with an Open Source system and applications. This study measures the effects on GDP, employment, trade balance and discretionary income. The idea had a previous successful try-out in a government project called e.iniciativas, where the debuting Linux laptop achieved a 10% market share. Later on, despite several attempts, Portuguese retailers were altogether unwilling to supply identical laptop solutions, when the e.iniciativas experience had clearly established that such products would be in demand.

The second study analyses this market behaviour, which is typical of retail oligopolies. The analysis derives a probability model for retail markets and addresses several malfunctioning phenomena in the frame of the existing European legislation for competition. This model can be applied to other markets where the imbalance between production and distribution control is felt and where distribution is highly concentrated.

They find the current market organization unpleasant:

The theoretical basis allows for the identification of two critical issues:

1) a small number of intervening parties holds the power to choose which products become available for millions of citizens

2) different degrees of decision-coupling between parties may show within an oligopoly

This matter has been neglected by our national Competition Authority and apparently not corrected by European institutions.
 

ESOP.pt may trigger an entertaining debate with their papers.

Die Danish EU Presidency is on the scrouge. For the EU Future Internet Assembly they raise fees from lobbyists. Makes me wonder if they fear EU presidency conferences become the new food stamps. I find it unpleasant that even a low walled garden would exclude parts of the Dutch population e.g. students from participation.

Future Internet Assembly May 7 – 11, 2012 – Aalborg Congress & Culture Center – Aalborg-Denmark Welcome to the online registration of the Future Internet Assembly.

Registration fee Future Internet Assembly (FIA) (May 10 – 11, 2012): DKK 1.500 / EUR 200 if you register latest April 23, 2012. After April 23, 2012 the registration fee is DKK 1875 / EUR 250
Future Internet Week: DKK 375 / EUR 50

The registration fee for Future Internet Week includes:
- Free access to Future Internet Week and all sessions on May 7 – 9, 2012
- Lunches & coffee breaks during the days of the program

The invitation was sent from a Commission address:

The Future Internet Assembly (FIA) of 2012 will be held in Aalborg on May 10-11, under the Presidency of Denmark in the EU Council. The theme for FIA-Aalborg will be “Smart Cities and Internet of Things”, and the programme promises many interesting discussions on how the Future Internet can be used to make our cities smarter and become a basis for more innovation, how the architecture of the Internet of Things relates to the Future Internet and examples of successful business models for IoT applications. There are also other interesting workshops on the impact of HTML5, interoperability of clouds, gaming and future networks.

And they even offer “early bird” discounts. How does it suit the dignity of a public office? I don’t know but at the Commission most staffers do not see any difference.

Wenn man der Entfernung von Würmern und nach dem Entfernen von Proxyeinträgen das Wifi zickt, und Garbage injiziert.

Programme – Zubehör – Eingabeaufforderung (als Admin ausführen)

netsh winssock reset catalog
netsh int ipv4 reset
netsh int ipv6 reset

A study from IFPI The Effect of Graduated Response Anti-Piracy Laws on Music Sales: Evidence from an Event Study in France” (SSRN record). Four major record labels (Universal, Warner, EMI and Sony Music) supplied music sales data. Scientists from American Universities analysed the French data. It is insightful that the effect is mostly psychological. The mere enactment of the Hadopi law is perceived as a signal to consumers. The study “does not quantify the entire effect of HADOPI on producer surplus in the media industries, but merely indicates that for one industry (music) in one channel (iTunes), the law has had a large and statistically significant effect.”

Nice to see media addressing the cost of software patents. At CNET, Last Jim Kersteller writes "What is that patent lawsuit going to cost you". Basically you'd have to pay lawsuits costs that are very high and pushes you to settle for anything under a million dollars. It certainly puts the small firm at huge risk. And to top that one off, Techdirt describes a study on why It's Mathematically Impossible To Avoid Infringing On Software Patents. Even for the larger players patents are as Brad Feld at Business Insider says "Games Where The Only Winning Move Is Not To Play". In fact this study, at techdirt, says that you earn more if you share for free. Oh wait, thats open standards and Internet.

When two issues are set high on the agenda it seems natural to examine an interlink. Women and climate change.

whereas climate change will amplify inequalities and there is a risk that climate change policies will also have a negative impact on gender balance…

Calls on the Commission and the Council, in order to ensure that climate action does not increase gender inequalities but results in co-benefits to the situation of women, to mainstream and integrate gender in every step of climate policies, from conception to financing, implementation and evaluation;

The European Parlament rapporteur Nicole Kiil-Nielsen almost manages to make a case. Still I’d like to suggest a Sokalist analysis of past initiative reports from the European Parlament.

Prof. Kuhlen zur aktuellen Urheberrechtsdebatte provoziert vom Kopf-gehört-Mir Theater. Das Fazit gleich zu Anfang:

Interessen der UrheberInnen an ihrem geistiges Eigentum werden in den Vordergrund gespielt, um nicht zuletzt gegen diejenigen Kampagnen zu führen, die dagegen aufbegehren, dass der Umgang mit Kunst, Bildung und Wissenschaft, Wissenschaft, insgesamt mit Kultur, in erster Linie  unter kommerziellen Gesichtspunkten gesehen wird.

Die Frage der Vergütung von Kulturschaffenden bleibt ganz ausgeklammert. Das ist verständlich, denn für Wissenschaftler im Staatssold ist in der Tat das Urheberrecht eine Chimäre. Was ist aber mit denjenigen, die von ihrer Kunst nicht leben können? Eine Problematik, die seit dem 19. Jahrhundert noch nicht gelöst ist. Neu ist die mediale Bedingtheit von Rechten in der Diskussion:

Aber muss das alles mit dem „Kampfwort“ „geistiges Eigentum“ begründet werden? Geht es nicht einfach um Rechte, die nicht quasi naturrechtlich wie „geistiges Eigentum“ reklamiert werden können, sondern nicht zuletzt unter veränderten …Rahmenbedingungen (wie jetzt durch das Internet) immer wieder neu verhandelt und dann in positive Gesetz gegossen werden müssen?

Da frage ich doch gleich weiter: Wie soll man anders diskutieren, damit es sinnvoll geschehen kann? Ich habe das mal so verdeutlicht. dass man in einer bipolaren Sicht zwischen “Stärkung” und “Schwächung” einem Rennwagen einen hochgezüchteten Motor mit mehr Pferdestärken einbauen würde und gleichzeitig die Bremse ausbauen (weil es ja nur schneller gehen soll). An vereinfachenden Starrsinn zerbricht letzten Endes jede Regulierungsaufgabe. Auch der Mittelweg ist nicht immer der richtige, einen See können wir links oder rechts umfahren, der Kompromiss lässt uns im Wasser landen.

Die derzeitige Diskussion führt nicht zu vernünftiger Balance. Wie wäre es mal mit Vernunft zur Weiterentwicklung des Urheberrechts?

Wenn das Abspielen von DVD nach dem Upgrade nach Oneiric mit VLC nicht mehr funktioniert (Meldung: MRT..)  mit Rootrechten  in der Datei

/etc/fstab

die Zeile mit scd0 auszukommentieren, und danach den Rechner neu zu starten. In meinem Fall

# /dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0       0

So that’s the question from the Commission to the European Court of Justice:

“Is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) compatible with the European Treaties, in particular with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union?”

Too short? You can’t ask another question under Art 218(11) TFEU. Interestingly the EU Commissioner didn’t publish the referral notice.

EU Commissioner Karel De Gucht asks the European Parliament to delay the vote on ACTA until the European Court of Justice has delivered its opinion. The EU observer quotes him:

ECJ ruling “…an important input to European public and democratic debate,”

What he doesn’t consider is that the IPR lobby is willing to surrender ACTA but not the entire Article 207 TFEU process which is challenged by the ECJ ruling invoked by De Gucht. And finally, the upcoming IPRED+ is more interesting than the dossier which allegedly does not change anything.

“Kunst hat Recht” (nicht: Kunst hart Rechts) ist eine österreichische Kampagne um Künstlern mehr öffentliches Gehör in der Urheberrechtsdebatte zu verschaffen. Mit von der Partei ist auch die von mir sehr geschätzte Mercedes Echerer. Eine Recherche von Machl hat nun ergeben, dass die Positionen der Kampagne aus einem IFPI-Papier von 2010 plagiiert sind.

Rob Weir notifies:

The ISO/IEC amendment to ODF 1.1 has finally been published. This makes the ISO version technically equivalent to the OASIS ODF 1.1.

Canadian professor Michael Geist comments on recent developments in Europe:

The European Parliament’s INTA Committee yesterday soundly rejected a proposal to refer the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement to the European Court of Justice for review. ACTA critics viewed the proposal as a delay tactic designed with the hope that public opposition to the agreement would subside in the year or two it would take for a court review. The 21-5 vote against the motion means that the INTA committee will conclude its ACTA review later this spring with a full European Parliament vote expected in June or July. The lack of support for ACTA within the European Parliament is now out in the open with multiple parties indicating they will not support the agreement.

Not quite. It rather seems that the conservatives (EPP) are unwilling to accept ACTA as an Europarl elections topic. The substantial questions arises whether a fast burial is beneficial as long as the fundamental treaty questions underlying Article 207 remain unreviewed by the court, and DG Trade continues with more of the same in bilaterals. Certainly the delay tactics would be beneficial to grow and sustain a broader popular movement. I am told the liberals didn’t like a fast burial.

Today is Document Freedom Day. Nice. And the German Document Freedom Award goes to 1&1 for their broad jabber deployment:

In Karlsruhe FSFE and FFII handed over a certificate and the Document Freedom Award-cake to Jan Oetjen, CEO 1&1 Internet Portals, and Tino Anic with his team, who are responsible for this functionality. The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, previously called Jabber) is an Open Standard communication protocol used for chatting. A variety of chat programs support this protocol, and it is also used in VoIP applications. Every e-mail users of 1&1, GMX and WEB.DE get such an XMPP account by default, which has the same name as the e-mail address.

Congratulations.

Jeff Klein from Mozilla emails:

Hi there,

Zainab says it best: “The Mozilla Hackasaurus workshop was a once in a lifetime experience.”

From X-ray Goggles to Hack Jams, Mozilla is giving kids the tools to remix and shape the Web — moving them away from consuming what already exists and toward shaping and building a more awesome Web — and I’m thrilled to be a part of it!

Argh! And it goes on:

The online experience presented to most kids today is one that is delivered in a shiny, fixed package — but Mozilla is changing that. Just ask Zainab: “We were introduced to Hackasaurus, a tool that makes it easy to mash up and change any website with the use of X-ray Goggles. You can remix any website and change it up to become your own…it was new and exciting.”

Get me the Karl Fogel manual rant. I just can’t stand all these awesome phrases.

Die Roboterstimme des Hitechwunders für die Seniorenbetreuung ist der Brüller:

Und jetzt kommt’s, er kommt von der Jade Hochschule.

Infojustice hat sich den Spaß gemacht ACTA und TPP zu vergleichen. Schön tabellarisch, gründlich. Natürlich, gegen TPP sieht ACTA harmlos aus. Weder ACTA noch TPP enthalten übrigens Bestimmungen für gezielte Schüsse.

Der Handelsausschuss stimmte mit großer Mehrheit (21 zu 5) gegen den Verweis an den EGH und der Plan ist tatsächlich noch im Sommer über ACTA abzustimmen. Für Kommissar Karel de Gucht muss das ein Affront sein.

“We have to bring that discussion back to the rational part. …I would expect all member states to wait the outcome of the procedure before the Court of Justice before they take final decision on their national procedure. This would be only normal.”

Siehe auch die Pressemitteilung von LQDN.

Mir wurde gestern zugetragen, dass nur ein “lobotomiertes Hühnchen” für den Interim-Bericht des Parlaments und den EGH-Verweis zu ACTA sei. Ich bin so eines. Ich finde es auch wichtiger, dass der EGH die Rechtsfragen des Art 207 klärt als ACTA schnell parlamentarisch zu verwerfen.

Man erinnere sich an das Rechtsgutachten zu ACTA, das zuerst vom Ausschuss veröffentlicht wurde. Merkwürdig war, dass danach mein Antrag auf Dokumentzugang negativ beschieden wurde, mit aberwitzigen Argumente wie der “Störung des Ratifikationsprozesses”, die noch einmal im Zweitantrag bestätigt worden sind. Ich habe damals nicht auf das Dokument von meinem Blog aus verlinkt, weil der Status ungeklärt war. Irgendwie ist dieser Sachverhalt aber auch dem Parlament nicht verborgen geblieben.

Nun erhält auch mein niederländischer Kollege Ante Wessels einen Bescheid vom Vize-Präsidenten Rainer Wieland (CDU), der sich da wohl ein wenig in etwas verstiegen hat. Rainer Wieland behauptet die Veröffentlichung durch den Ausschuss sei illegal gewesen. Der brüskierte JURI-Vorsitzende Klaus-Heiner Lehne (CDU) war da anderer Meinung.

Ante Wessels hat einen exzellenten Bericht zu dem Schreiben von Wieland verfasst. Lesepflicht!

Ich finde es immer wieder spannend wie wackelige Argumente in einer Auseinandersetzung plötzlich mit allen Regeln der Kunst ausgebaut werden. Nun wird aus dem Hut gezogen, dass die Veröffentlichung den Ratifikationsprozess in Drittstaaten stören könnte. Drittstaaten sind Staaten ausserhalb der EU. Dafür gibt es aber überhaupt keine Rechtsgrundlage in der Dokumentzugangsvorschrift EC/1049/2001, es sei denn man möchte wieder auf eine Beeinträchtigung internationaler Beziehungen abheben.

Ich habe keine Ahnung, wieso die Debatte so surreal wird, aber vielleicht ist das ein Streitigkeit in der CDU Fraktion im Europaparlament, die hier ausgetragen wird, oder der eurobegeisterte Abgeordnete Wieland möchte einen Gang zum Gerichtshof erwirken. Oder der Frühling macht uns alle ganz albern.

As to your allegation that the coordinators of the Legal Affairs committee [Klaus Heiner Lehne] had decided to disclose the legal opinion I have to inform you that contrary to your allegations, no decision exists to fully disclose document SJ-661/11 which has been formally adopted by any competent political body of the European Parliament.

Jürgen Stark findet starke Worte für die Piraten-Partei:

Die “Piraten”-Partei symbolisiert lediglich das Comeback des ewigen Spießers im neuen Gewand. Sie stehen für fast nichts, in Sachen Urheberrecht für das Ende des Rock’n'Roll und der klassischen Popkultur. Sie wollen die Musikkonzerne vernichten und damit einen digitalen Steinzeitsozialismus einführen, sie wollen also Arbeitsplätze und das Geschäftmodell Musikwirtschaft zertrümmern – im Dienste der neuen IT-Herren, der modernen Zuhälter, die mit den geklauten Werken anderer Millionen scheffeln.

Genauso die WELT über die auch im Saarland erfolgreiche Partei:

Am Abend eines weiteren Triumphs der vergleichsweise jungen Partei stand Michael Hilberer im schwarzen Sweatshirt zwischen den anderen Spitzenkandidaten, die sich allesamt die Mühe gemacht haben, …auch in der Wahl ihrer Garderobe dem Souverän Wähler ihre Wertschätzung zu kommunizieren.

Bei Äußerlichkeiten bleibt es nicht, sondern es gibt noch reihenweise steile Thesen. Unverhofft wird der Verriss sprachlich kreativ:

Die aggressive Naivität der Piraten und ihre betonte Ferne zum Parteiensystem werden ebenso wie das laptoppige Zerzauseln auf Parteitagen und die Krawattenferne des Personals auf der linksidealistischen Seite verortet – dabei hat das Ressentiment der Piraten gegen das politische Establishment denselben Drall wie bei der amerikanischen Tea Party.

Ich kann mir das gut vorstellen, wie da einer in der Redaktion sich dachte, nun ist Schluß, nun schreibe ich mal einen schönen Verriss. Dumm nur, dass auch Polemik gelernt sein will, wenn man Stammtischniveau erreichen möchte.

Just got this press release from my colleagues from Quadrature du Net:

ACTA: The EU Parliament Must Face Its Political Responsibility
Brussels, March 26th, 2012 – Today is the beginning of a decisive week for the future of the ACTA procedure in the EU Parliament. Tomorrow, Members of the EU Parliament (MEPs) may decide whether to vote on ACTA in the next few months as originally planned, or to follow the rapporteur David Martin in buying time and defusing the ongoing debate through technocratic manoeuvres. … Whereas the EU Commission has already announced that it will refer ACTA to the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) to assess its compatibility with EU Treaties and fundamental rights in order to buy time, the ACTA rapporteur in the EU Parliament, MEP David Martin (S&D, UK) is pushing the same strategy. He has proposed that the “International Trade” committee (INTA) draft an “interim report” [1] before recommending consent or rejection of ACTA, and that the EU Parliament make its own referral of ACTA to the ECJ (which has already been strongly opposed by his own political group). As La Quadrature explains in a memo [2] sent to MEPs, both initatives must be dismissed. Both the interim report and an ECJ referral are useless, and will only serve to delay the final vote, considering ACTA proponents think the agreement would be rejected, were the Parliament to vote on it in the coming months.

Of course a swift rejection would be more clear cut. What Quadrature overlooks is that while there is a referral to the Court the European Parliament cannot vote on it, Parliament cannot do anything. And when Parliament does not join the case via Article 219(11) TFEU how could it make the Court consider its own issues and prerogatives? I can’t see why a interim report would be harmful as it keeps the debate going and won’t have any effect on a prolongation of the process.

LQDN demonstrates that their voting expectations do not depend upon the ECJ rerferral but their procedural input is quite a bit confusing. I had some strange artefacts in my DSL connection and then found out the ethernet cable between the router and the splitter was broken. You could argue that LQDN add some fog of war and inserted confusion in the process. I just wonder if MEPs would switch to a different cable. If you dismiss the current proposed procedures of the rapporteur David Martin as “delay” tactics what’s the actual alternative for Parliament?

Eigentlich finde ich den ARTE Blogger ein etwas bemühtes Nischenformat, aber hier mal nettes aus den Redaktionsstuben des Gemeinschaftssenders. Als Radioaktivität noch sehr beeindruckend war:

Heute wissen wir dank Fukushima, dass man sich mit diesen Maleranzügen aus dem Baumarkt gegen die Strahlen behilft. Und Henry I. Miller fragte letzes Jahr in der WELT, ob Strahlung gut für uns sein kann.

Der Musiker und Autor Sven Regener ganz fünsch zur Urheberrechtsdebatte in BR2 Zuendfunk, respektive zum Strukturwandel in der Musikindustrie. Regener beklagt, dass es keine “endemische Musik” der heutigen Jugend mehr gebe. Wo bleibt da der Rock’n Roll. Auch kaum noch Gesangsvereine wie zu Zeiten meines Opas oder Frühschoppen mit Dixieland-Kapelle. Übrig bleibe nur noch Volksmusik, das Trauma seiner Generation, die ganze Independent Szene mit Studentenpublikum sei weg, weil sich heutzutage die Piratenmentalität durchsetze. Da passt das mit dem Zu-end-funk eigentlich ganz gut.

Ergänzend: Ich bin einer der Dinosaurier, die mehr Musik kaufen als hören. Ich lerne heute vor allen Dingen Musik durch Youtube kennen.

Here just the link to the SCOTUS ruling.

“The Court has recognized, however, that too broad an interpretation of this exclusionary principle could eviscerate patent law. For all inventions at some level embody,use, reflect, rest upon, or apply laws of nature, naturalphenomena, or abstract ideas.”

Der Europaabgeordnete Bütikofer verliert die Nerven:

“Digitale Gesellschaft”=verleumderische Arschlöcher. Nennen mich “Wackelkandidat” bzgl. #PNR, haben mich nie gefragt + ignorieren Korrektur.

— Reinhard Bütikofer (@bueti) März 21, 2012

Wobei noch gar nicht erklärt ist, was PNR überhaupt ist. PNR = Passenger Name Records. Also der Austausch von Fluggastinformationen. Dazu gibt es ein Abkommen mit den USA zur Datenweitergabe, wobei die Frage, was wir als Gegenleistung erhalten, etwas im Dunklen liegt. Mit anderen Worten: Datenschützer gegen Politiker, die sich über den Teich ziehen lassen.

Ich finde es grundsätzlich gefährlich, wenn Positionen nur noch solche Flipkarten sind, für oder dagegen. Manchmal muss man hart für oder gegen etwas sein, meistens handelt jemand Verbesserungen aus, und das ist auch gut so. Differenzierte Positionen lassen sich nicht so klar kommunizieren, aber die Verflachung der Debatte schadet der Entscheidungskultur, wo man doch lieber einmal jene Kräfte hinter dem Abkommen zur Rede stellen sollte.

Agenda for the Civil Liberties Committee, 26 March 2012, 15.00 — 15.45 Room: Paul-Henri Spaak (5B001)**

3. Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement between the EU and its Member States, Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the USA
LIBE/7/08659
*** 2011/0167(NLE) 12195/2011 — C7-0027/2012
Rapporteur for the opinion: Dimitrios Droutsas (S&D)

The EUROPEAN GROUP ON ETHICS IN SCIENCE AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES delivered a report for the European Commission.

ETHICS OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
Reference: Request from President Barroso
Rapporteurs: Julian Kinderlerer, Peter Dabrock, Hille Haker, Herman Nys;

Most parts of the report are completely off-topic. This is what the theologists have to say about interoperability:

2.2.5 Interoperability and Standards
Interoperability is the ability of computers or digital systems to exchange and use information with one another.96 If, for example, rival telephone networks used completely different protocols it would not necessarily be possible to connect to others on a different network. “Interoperability means working together – collaboration of systems, services and people. When people work together, they need to communicate and make agreements. They need to agree on the tasks they will perform and how they will exchange results. If their nationality is different, they also need to agree on the language in which they will communicate. Moreover, they need to overcome cultural and legal differences.”97 The European Commission recently announced the adoption of the European Interoperability Framework, which has been closely monitored by big ICT firms and public administrations to find out what kind of software licences they should have.98

96 Lack of interoperability of Microsoft software and servers, for instance, was at the centre of an antitrust case brought by former EU Commissioner Mario Monti in 2004 when he was head of the Commission’s competition department. Last June the European Commission launched an antitrust investigation into IBM’s mainframe business after two smaller companies complained that they could not use the company’s operating system without buying costly IBM hardware. .
97 http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/2319/5938.html
98 — Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) or royalty-free. Commission initiatives in the area stem from a 2009 White Paper ‘Modernising ICT Standardisation in the EU — The Way Forward’. The European Parliament has also published a non-legislative report on the future of European standardisation.

I wonder what marks their students would get for delivering an off-topic paper?

ACTA made us aware that democracy is not particularly popular among the Commission folks. Most EU Commissioners are unknown by the European peoples. EU-Commissioner Karel De Gucht (Belgium, OpenVLD) so far became more famous for inappropriate anti-semite remarks than his Trade portfolio at the European Commission. But Karel de Gucht had a dossier in his portfolio which raised broadest public attention among the European younger generation: ACTA.

Concerned of the ACTA dossier many citizens contacted the press staffers of his colleague Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Commissioner Michel Barnier is right when he emphasized the need for better communications. Karel De Gucht had the opportunity to embrace the public attention to ACTA, and strengthen the institutional cohesion with the European public, help the transformation of the EU towards an “Europe of the citizens”. He didn’t exercise this opportunity, and it appears to me the reason is a fundamental disrespect to democratic principles, he doesn’t take the public seriously.

At a recent Council Trade press conference Karel De Gucht, when requested by a Polish journalist, talked down on the Polish Parliament.

In Parliaments a lot of things are said. That is also what the Parliament is made for. I stick to the procedure.

Apparently that appears acceptable by Brussels standards but it’s not for me. He continued to mock the public “turmoil, public manifestations” in member states as Poland.

We have to bring the discussion – let’s say – back to the rational part.

Grist to the mill of the eurosceptic movement how they then advocate a concept of EU-loyalty to what anonymous persons from the executive brach have agreed to in secretive meetings which allegedly overrule national legislators. Apparently the role of Parliament is supposed to be loyal ratification. Even more awkward, when you consider the actual illoyality of the Criminal Sanction part harmonisation to the European Parliament.

Recently Members of the European Parliament officially complained at Commission President José Manuel Barroso how they learned about the Commission’s intent to referr ACTA to the European Court of Justice only by the press, contrary to Commissioner Karel De Gucht’s obligations under Art 218(10) EU Treaty “The European Parliament shall be immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure.”

When Karel de Gucht fails to show the appropriate respect towards Parliament, you have to consider that he was once an MEP (1995-1999) himself. What was acceptable then is not acceptable anymore. We cannot affort Parliaments be treated like talking shops. The democratic deficit of the Commission needs to be resolved.

In Germany it is said that fish always stinks from the head downwards. This is how his top staffers show their respect for Parliament, via twitter from Geneva:

At the WTO TRIPS Council meeting, the EU negotiators were informally trashing the EU Parliament’s “theoretical” role in the #ACTA approval.

— James Love (@jamie_love) Februar 29, 2012

Worst of it, they are right.