Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-13-Speech-2-132"
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"en.20010213.6.2-132"2
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"I would firstly like to apologise for having arrived late for this debate: I was in another meeting and that is why I am speaking last, despite the fact that I have had the honour of taking responsibility for this issue on behalf of the European People's Party.
Mr President, my first words are words of thanks, and I can also add my thanks as Chair of the committee, for the work carried out by the rapporteur. I say this sincerely. I believe that it would be hard to find a more complex issue, on which pressure has been unleashed from all the interest groups, which have legitimately fought to have their positions adopted by the various political groups. There are few issues on which we have received so many, if not tonnes then at least metres of faxes and e-mails as we have on this one. The rapporteur has been masterly in his navigation of these turbulent waters; he has always remembered that a rapporteur is rapporteur for a committee, not for any group or any position: he is rapporteur for a committee and he is duty-bound to reflect the majority position of that committee. I am pleased to say that the amendments put forward by the rapporteur were supported by a huge majority in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Mr President, please allow me now to make some comments which are going to reiterate what has already been said, because at this point in the debate everything has really been said already. This is a much-criticised directive, and it is worthy of criticism; but this is a case, as is so often the case in European integration, in which what is best and what is feasible are not the same thing. As has already been said, we are starting from a situation in which there is complete divergence between the laws of the various Member States, where in reality the concept of copyright, the whole gamut of obligations and rights which this concept is represented by in our different laws, is not even similar. It is not simply that are not the same, but that they are not even similar. To try to harmonise them is an heroic quest.
This directive is a first step, but Parliament accepted this gamble on first reading and therefore it has to be consistent and continue in this vein on second reading. At first reading we could have adopted disruptive positions; that was not Parliament's approach, and we accepted a directive full of exceptions. At the moment, the amendments of the Committee on Legal Affairs, added to certain other notable amendments which deserve to be supported, improve this directive on certain substantial points, such as private copying. I refer to what has already been said. And in summary they improve the directive by making it a first step in a system of harmonisation which will have to be carried out over time, a first step which furthermore will enable us to fulfil our international commitments, since until this directive sees the light of day, the two WIPO Treaties will not be able to enter into force. That is also an important responsibility at a time when we talk so much about globalisation."@en1
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