Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-04-Speech-4-010"
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"Mr President, I would like, above all, to thank the Commission for appreciating the risk involved in the phenomenon of counterfeiting and piracy. Their Green Paper initiative is a clear demonstration of their determination to tackle the problem, and I should also like to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and on the committees whose opinion was requested, who have made a considerable contribution to the enrichment of my work.
And finally, I appeal to the Commission, which I hope will submit its proposed action programme for responding to the urgent nature of this phenomenon in the very near future. Since the matter would indeed seem genuinely to be one of absolute urgency, especially as regards piracy in the audiovisual media, the Commission must not fail to respond in a decisive and urgent manner.
Piracy and counterfeiting constitute a risk to consumer health and safety. Spare parts for cars and aircraft, toys and pharmaceutical products, all of which endanger the lives of consumers, are to be found on the counterfeit market.
Piracy also jeopardises innovation and the very future of certain firms. By way of example, I would cite the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost every year within the European Union due to this. Counterfeiters take advantage of the investments made by bona fide industry in new product research and development and in advertising. This also undermines the fiscal resources of the state authorities.
Finally, it has been established that this phenomenon is often closely linked to organised crime. My report advocates a coordinated overall approach in order to combat piracy and counterfeiting. This approach has two aspects: prevention and law enforcement.
If we are to prevent this scourge, we must first familiarise ourselves with it. We therefore propose an extensive public awareness campaign, with whatever programmes the Commission can suggest, and increasing awareness among the police, judicial and customs authorities. We plan to set up training schemes for these authorities and a cooperation plan involving the exchange of know-how and adoption of best national practice.
Prevention must also involve strengthened cooperation between the private and public sectors, and the legal protection of technical arrangements, while obviously respecting consumer rights. Indeed, making allowances for consumer rights and the legitimate demands of professionals is one of the difficult aspects of this report.
Of course, each Member State has its own internal regulations for law enforcement. In order to make them more effective, we must endeavour to harmonise current legislation and thereby remove the disparities between protection systems. Obviously, penal sanctions must be made more stringent and civil measures and procedures must be simplified. The approximation of the penal sanctions applied by different nations in the case of customs offences is certainly desirable. It will also be appropriate to pay particular attention to matters of international judicial cooperation.
To conclude this brief overview of my report, I shall say that the effective protection and implementation of intellectual property rights must be an absolute priority in negotiations with countries seeking accession to the European Union and in all relations with third countries.
I shall add that we should try, in our plenary sitting, to preserve the consensus which emerged in committee when voting on this report, in order to ensure that the European Parliament thereby gives a strong political message as to its commitment in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy."@en1
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