European Parliament confronts EU Member States on Marrakesh Treaty Legislation

On March 22nd the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament adopted a strong report on EU implementation of the right-to-read Marrakesh Treaty. A vast majority of European Parliamentarians agreed with the European Blind Union´s position that rules out both compensation for rights-holders and commercial availability in EU legislation to assure the efficacy and sustainability of broad access to reading material for visually-impaired persons in Europe and around the world. This is an important first step toward successful Marrakesh Treaty ratification and application in the EU.

Now tough negotiations begin between the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission, referred to a “trialogue”, to determine the final text of the Directive and the Regulation for implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty in the EU. Unfortunately, most EU member states in the Council have opposed both the original positive proposal of the European Commission as well as the slightly amended version of the European Parliament that accepts most elements of the Commission proposal. Most importantly, the Council wants to delete from the legislation recital 11 that prohibits the possibility of compensation for rights-holders and commercial availability in EU member state laws. This is the “make or break” issue in the negotiations.

Over a number of years we have worked very hard to get the Marrakesh Treaty as an international instrument to help end the “book famine” that affects millions of blind and visually-impaired persons in Europe and globally. But the Marrakesh Treaty will only be a successful tool if we achieve effective and user-friendly EU legislation for its ratification and application. This will only happen if we are able to convince European Governments to clearly support the human rights of people with visual disabilities over certain narrow economic interests. Now is the time to let our national governments know that the right to read comes first.

By David Hammerstein, EU advocate for the World Blind Union.