Paris, 16 December 2014 — A couple of days before the European Council summit where will be discussed European economy and social policy, La Quadrature du Net signs an open letter written by Health Action International Europe against the directive's project on trade secrets. Initiated by the business community, put forward by the Member States and the European Commission, it gives the possibility for private companies to sue any person that "unlawfully acquires, uses or discloses" the "trade secrets". Whistleblowers are poorly protected in this text, the directive creates a judiciary insecurity as it will dissuade from leaking from private companies. It participates to a movement reinforcing secrets, perceptible on the legislative and jurisprudential plan, against the claims of transparency coming from the civil society, and constitutes in this respect an unacceptable anti-democratic drift.

Brussels, 25th April 2012 - ACTA is following its way through the committees of the European Parliament. Under strong pressure from the copyright lobbies, ACTA proponents seem to awake and become vocal. With upcoming votes in Legal Affairs (JURI) and Industry (ITRE) committees, it is more than ever time for citizens to convince Members that this dangerous agreement should be rejected, and that copyright should durably be reformed.

Paris, May 26th, 2011 – Despite the huge PR campaign surrounding the “eG8 forum”, citizens and civil society must hold their ground to reclaim a free Internet and its social and democratic values. A club of corporation CEOs (Publicis, Facebook, Orange, Google) is going to Deauville, pretending to carry the message of the Internet to the heads of States. There is one answer to this take-over: the Internet is ours!

Strasbourg, May 19, 2010 - Today, with the release of Neelie Kroes' Digital Agenda, the European Commission is unveiling major policy orientations regarding Internet-related policies. Several leaked drafts of the document revealed heavy pressures from various special interest groups. While the general outcome of the final document is encouraging, the crucial question of interoperability and open standards was eventually arbitrated in favour of US software vendors' positions. On IPR enforcement and cybercrime, the worst has been avoided but some very ambiguous wording remains.

Brussels, January 29th, 2010 - The draft1 of the Gallo2 report on strengthening the enforcement of "intellectual property rights" (IPR) in the Internal Market has been presented in the JURI commission of the European Parliament. This initiative report3 is a response to a communication of the Commission on the same topic, which La Quadrature has already strongly condemned4. The document has only one merit: it provides a perfect example of the worst kind of IPR dogmatism.

• 1. http://www.laquadrature.net/files/GalloReport-20100128.pdf
• 2. Marielle Gallo, rapporteur of this "IPR enforcement" report, is a French EPP Member of the European Parliament.
• 3. A non-legislative position of the European Parliament preparing or encouraging legislative initiative
• 4. http://www.laquadrature.net/en/dogmatic-ipr-enforcement-fails-to-address-the-challenges-of-the-internet-based-creative-economy

Paris, April 20th 2009 − The Council of the EU is strongly pushing Catherine Trautmann – rapporteur of the main directives of the "Telecoms Package" – to accept a useless, neutralized version1 of amendment 138. This amendment, opposing to “graduated response” – or “three strikes” – schemes, has been overwhelmingly adopted by the European Parliament in its first reading on September 2008, and is crucial for safeguarding EU citizens' rights and freedoms. La Quadrature du Net calls European citizens to urge their MEPs seating in ITRE committee to support the rapporteur by refusing any compromise neutralizing amendment 138 (now renumbered 46) on April 21st vote.

• 1. The Council wants to make it a merely indicative recital instead of an article that Member States must transpose into their law

Paris, March 2nd − Rapporteurs for the European Parliament on the directives of the Telecoms Package, have just released their draft reports for the second reading. Some improvements were made, like the reintroduction of amendments 138 & 166. About “Net discrimination”, the worst was avoided, but there is still a blatant lack for clarification and concrete guarantees that Telecom operators won't be allowed full control over the Internet. La Quadrature du Net calls IMCO and ITRE members to vigilance in order to “patch” the last loopholes left open in this text.

Paris, Feb.16th - Amendments in the European Parliament to the "Telecoms Package" 1 may allow operators to take control of their customer's usage of the Net. According to amendments pushed by AT&T, "network management practices" could be used to discriminate what content, services and applications users could access and use.

• 1. Revision of five directives regulating electronic communication networks in Europe. More infos : http://www.laquadrature.net/Telecoms_Package

Everybody agrees that European Union suffers from a democratic deficit which deepens the gap between European institutions and their citizens. What is more unknown is that one of main reasons for this is that Member States often use European Union to achieve what can be spelled as “political laundering”. The “Telecoms Package” gives a perfect example of such a deceptive maneuver, aimed at legalizing an european-wide "graduated response" against citizens, and stretching it even deeper as usual. How does it work?

Paris, 31 October 2008

Brussels, September 3rd, 2008. MEPs, representatives of the European Commission and Council have discussed yesterday in plenary session, in Brussels, the reform of European law on electronic communications (Telecoms Package).

Brussels, July 1st, 2008 - updated : July 2nd, 2008

One week before a key vote in the reform of European law on electronic communications ("Telecoms Package"), La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net) denounces a series of amendments aimed at closing the open architecture of the Internet for more control and surveillance of users.

1984: The amendments on the Telecoms Package are killing fundamental freedoms

Brussels – Guy Bono is indignant about the freedom-killing amendments that have been submitted in the framework of the “Telecoms Package”, that is currently being discussed in the European Parliament.