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Deutsch: Brüssel: "Four Strikes" gegen Netzsperren

Last week, the European Parliament took its final vote on the proposed Directive on Child Sexual Exploitation. Parliamentarians voted for a compromise text which rejected the European Commission's proposal to make web blocking mandatory across the EU. The final text creates significant new barriers for Member States who already have introduced lawless blocking systems, such as are currently operated in the Denmark, the UK and Sweden, the home country of the Home Affairs Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström.

Under the Lisbon Treaty, any measure which is regulated by European legislation is subject to the Charter on Fundamental Rights. As a result, from now on, blocking is not only subject to the limitations listed in the Directive (blocking must be based on transparent procedures, must provide adequate safeguards, must be necessary and proportionate and must allow for judicial redress), but also the restrictions listed in Article 52 of the Charter on Fundamental Rights. This requires restrictions to be "provided for by law", to be necessary and to "genuinely meet objectives of general interest". In Sweden, blocking is not provided for by law and, as a result, a reform of the procedures would be necessary to bring them into line with the Directive. Currently, the Swedish system is a case study in the laxity that comes from blocking - the blocking list is only updated every two weeks, despite the fact that most recent research shows that sites only remain online for 12 days.

Also last week, the European Commission adopted its Communication on the "EU response to drugs." The Communication makes reference to the problem of drugs being available via the Internet. However, when the policy of web blocking was discussed at the highest levels in the Commission, a unanimous decision was taken that web blocking would not be an appropriate strategy.

Last month, on 16 September 2011, the European Commission organised an "expert-based workshop" to follow up on the Green Paper on Gambling in the Internal Market. The minutes of that meeting show that even enforcement bodies now recognise that "blocking does not work as an isolated enforcement tool" and, while the regulators still hold on to the theory that blocking may have some positive effect in combination with other strategies, they also concede that this possible benefit is counterbalanced by the fact that "blocking might impact on legitimate business".

Finally, the European Parliament is coming to the end of its deliberations on the same gambling Green Paper. Quite remarkably, after the European Commission devoted a significant section of its document to asking if and how blocking might be useful in fighting illegal gambling websites, the European Parliament studiously ignored the question. In the two "Opinions" prepared by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and the Legal Affairs Committee, the suggestion is not considered worthy of mention. It is also not mentioned in the report of the Committee responsible (the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee), with the MEP responsible, Jürgen Creutzmann (ALDE, Germany) being very clear in speeches that he has given on the subject that the experience of blocking in France and Italy shows that blocking has, at best, a marginal impact on achieving its goals.

Final Parliament report on child exploitation (27.10.2011)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&...

Charter on Fundamental Rights
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf

Average removal time for child abuse sites
https://publicaffairs.linx.net/news/?cat=20

European Commission Communication on Drugs (25.11.2011)
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/newsroom/anti-drugs/news/20111025_en.htm

Expert meeting on gambling (14.10.2011)
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/services/docs/gambling/workshops/w...

(contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)