The ongoing negotiations on the multilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) were again object of debate with the Commission at the plenary session of the European Parliament, where MEPs have reiterated their critics to the lack of transparency in this process and potentially objectionable content.

In march this year, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the negotiations to be conducted transparently. In this written declaration, MEPs consider that the proposed multilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) should not indirectly impose harmonisation of EU copyright, patent or trademark law, and that the principle of subsidiarity should be respected.

MEPs demanded that no personal searches should be conducted at EU borders and that the agreement should not introduce any type of "three strikes" internet disconnection as a penalty for three online copyright infringements.

Later, in June this year, the Parliament asked the Commission for the harmonization of copyright rules and referred specifically to the conclusion of the ACTA Agreement respecting the procedure, Now, the house recalls that the Commission should immediately make all documents related to the ongoing negotiations publicly available.

The Parliament takes the view that internet service providers should not bear liability for the data they transmit or host through their services to an extent that would necessitate prior surveillance or filtering of such data and stresses that economic and innovation risks must be evaluated prior to introducing criminal sanctions where civil measures are already in place.

Parliament also insisted that ACTA should not affect global access to affordable and safe medicinal products on the pretext of combating counterfeiting.