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The #SaveYourInternet fight against Article 17 [ex Art. 13] continues

The Council APPROVED the Copyright Directive:
How Did EU Member States Vote?

On 15 April the Council (= EU Member States) APPROVED the copyright Directive at the Ministerial level at an Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting in Luxembourg – see the overview below of how EU Member States voted.

  • 6 Member States voted AGAINST: Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden
  • 4 Member States abstained: Belgium, Estonia, Greece and Slovenia
  • 18 Member States voted FOR – see below.

See the joint statement from Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and the separate statement from Estonia here.

Article 17 (ex Art. 13) of the adopted text will force upload filters onto the Internet. The EU Member States will now have 2 years’ time to implement the Directive into their own national legislation. This means that the fight continues, but now at national level. This copyright legislation is a Directive, which means that the EU Member States have some margin for manoeuvre at the national level with regards to how they ensure that the legislation will work in practice. Therefore, it will be important to convince national policymakers to ensure that they implement Article 17 (ex Art. 13) in the least harmful way, by ensuring the best possible protection of citizens’ fundamental rights.

Voted FOR the
Copyright Directive
(= FOR Article 17 [ex Art. 13])

18 Member States

69.17% of
EU population

Voted AGAINST the
Copyright Directive
(= AGAINST Article 17 [ex Art. 13])

6 Member States

25.86% of
EU population

Abstained from voting
on the Copyright Directive
(= No Vote on Article 17 [ex Art. 13])

4 Member States

4.98% of
EU population

Austria
Austria
1.71% of EU population
Belgium
Belgium
2.22% of EU population
Bulgaria
Bulgaria
1.37% of EU population
Croatia
Croatia
0.80% of EU population
Cyprus
Cyprus
0.17% of EU population
CzechRepublic
Czech Republic
2.04% of EU population
Danmark
Denmark
1.13% of EU population
Estonia
Estonia
0.26% of EU population
Finland
Finland
1.07% of EU population
France
France
13.10% of EU population
Germany
Germany
16.12% of EU population
Greece
Greece
2.09% of EU population
Hungary
Hungary
1.91% of EU population
Ireland
Ireland
0.94% of EU population
Italy
Italy
11.92% of EU population
Latvia
Latvia
0.38% of EU population
Lithuania
Lithuania
0.55% of EU population
Luxemburg-60x60
Luxembourg
0.12% of EU population
Malta
Malta
0.09% of EU population
Netherlands-60x60
Netherlands
7.40% of EU population
Poland
Poland
1.07% of EU population
Portugal
Portugal
2.00% of EU population
Romania
Romania
3.80% of EU population
Slovakia
Slovakia
1.06% of EU population
Slovenia
Slovenia
0.40% of EU population
Spain
Spain
9.09% of EU population
Sweden
Sweden
1.98% of EU population
UnitedKingdom
UK
12.90% of EU population

How Did Your MEPs Vote?

On 26 March 2019, all 750 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) adopted an EU copyright reform that forces upload filters onto the Internet, as Article 17 (ex Art. 13) was not deleted. Check your country page here for more information about how your MEPs voted.

Over 130 MEPs from across the EU pledged in advance to vote in favour of deleting Article 17 (ex Art. 13) and against the final text of the new EU Copyright Directive if Article 17 (ex Art. 13) would remain in it. Check who pledged and how they voted here:

Pledge2019.eu

If you want to check out a more in-depth overview of MEPs’ voting behaviour, covering all EU Member States, please see our spreadsheet in Excel format (with graphics) or in OpenDocument format (without graphics). The official voting records provided by the European Parliament can be found here, see pp. 50-51 for the procedural vote on the possibility to change the final text and pp. 52-53 for the final vote on the Copyright Directive.

Don’t forget to follow @FixIt_EU for updates on copyright & to follow @edri for more general updates on digital and fundamental rights issues.

Background

In September 2018, MEPs voted for a version of the copyright Directive which will indirectly lead to implementing upload filters on most of the services you use online. The European Parliament’s (EP) Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee Rapporteur, MEP Axel Voss, then started the ‘trilogue negotiations’ – closed-door ‘informal’ negations with the representatives of the EU Member States (Council) and the European Commission (EC). These negotiations resulted in a trilogue agreement on 13 February, 2019. Despite massive criticism, the text has been made even worse than the EP’s proposal. On 20 February 2019, the EU Member State Deputy Ambassadors approved the provisional copyright trilogue agreement during the meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER 1), and on 26 February, the European Parliament’s lead Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee ‘rubber-stamped’ the agreement allowing it to be voted on 26 March in the EP Plenary session. More details here.

See EDRi’s short summary of the most important developments in the Copyright Reform.