- ACTA’s Back: European Commission Trying To Sneak In Worst Parts Using Canada-EU Trade Agreement As A Trojan Horse | Techdirt
The European Commission strategy appears to be to use CETA as the new ACTA, burying its provisions in a broader Canadian trade agreement with the hope that the European Parliament accepts the same provisions it just rejected with the ACTA framework. If successful, it would likely then argue that ACTA poses no new concerns since the same rules were approved within the Canadian trade deal.
- Michael Geist – ACTA Lives: How the EU & Canada Are Using CETA as Backdoor Mechanism To Revive ACTA
The backdoor ACTA approach creates enormous risks for Canada’s trade ambitions. Given the huge anti-ACTA movement, the Canada – EU trade deal could face widespread European opposition with CETA becoming swept up in similar protests.
With anti-ACTA sentiment spreading across Europe, Canada should push to remove the intellectual property chapter from CETA altogether. The move would not be unprecedented. Many of Canada’s free trade agreements feature only limited IP provisions and last year a Canadian parliamentary committee recommended that “domestic copyright policies are not part of any present or future trade negotiations.”