The Conservative European People’s Party (EPP) is calling for an early vote on the reform of EU copyright law in the European Parliament. „We want the vote as soon as Parliament’s services are ready,“ an EPP spokesman told dpa today.
The main issue is whether the translators of the Parliament have transposed the law into all EU languages in good time. At first, a spokesman for the parliament was unable to say how far the translators were.
According to the speaker, if the translations were available, the EPP would be ready to vote in plenary next week. That would have to propose the party group of faction leader Manfred Weber (CSU) on Thursday in the Conference of Presidents. This body consists of Parliament President Antonio Tajani and the leaders of the political groups. If not voted on next week, it will be out by the end of March.
Critics fear censorship
After yesterday’s public announcement that the EPP was seeking to vote next week, protests broke out in social networks. On Twitter, opponents and reformers called for „urgent demos“ in seven German cities opposing reform. Among other things, demonstrations will be held in front of the CDU headquarters in Berlin, Stuttgart and Hanover.
Negotiators of the Parliament and the EU states had agreed in mid-February on a draft copyright reform. Among other things, he provides for an ancillary copyright for press publishers and – in Article 13 – significantly more copyright protection obligations for platforms such as YouTube.
Critics fear that the platforms will only be able to meet the requirements if they use upload filters that allow them to check whether images, videos and music are protected by copyright. This threatens censorship.
