EU telecoms legislation

The European Parliament has today approved a compromise agreement on telecoms legislation that its negotiators reached with the EU Council. The major sticking point had been on the protection of internet users' rights in the face of severe and fast-track copyright enforcement measures that are envisaged in some EU Member States.

Greens/EFA MEP Philippe Lamberts (Ecolo, Belgium), a member of the EP delegation to the conciliation committee on this legislation, commented:

"The compromise approved by the European Parliament today is certainly not the alpha and omega of protecting internet users' rights, but we did achieve the best possible result under the current constitutional constraints.

We will be extremely vigilant on how Member States adopt this text in their national legislation. It is time that the EU adopted a true charter for internet users in order to define right of access, respect of privacy, freedom of speech and net neutrality. Special attention to the rights of creative professionals is due, but not at the cost of barring access to the extraordinary resource that is the internet."

Greens/EFA MEP Christian Engström (Pirate Party, Sweden), also a member of the EP delegation to the conciliation committee, commented:

"The EU compromise reached on protecting internet users' rights is far from perfect but it does represent a step in the right direction.  It sends a clear message to Nicolas Sarkozy, Peter Mandelson and others that draconian copyright enforcement measures will not be allowed to override internet users' fundamental rights in the EU."

Read also:

Christian Engström's blog post: "Telecoms package is ammunition to stop Hadopi"