[governance] Net Neutrality: A Great Step Forward for the Free Internet!

Thu Apr 3 13:14:15 EDT 2014

Net Neutrality: A Great Step Forward for the Free Internet!
Submitted on 3 Apr 2014 - 11:46

http://www.laquadrature.net/en/net-neutrality-a-great-step-forward-for-the-f
ree-internet

Brussels, 3 April 2014  Today the European Parliament adopted in first
reading the Regulation on the Single Telecoms Market. By amending the text
with the proposal of amendments made by the Social-Democrats (S&D), Greens
(Greens/EFA), United Left (GUE/NGL) and Liberals (ALDE), the Members of the
European Parliament took a historic step for the protection of Net
Neutrality and the Internet commons in the European Union. La Quadrature du
Net warmly thanks all citizens, organisations and parliamentarians who took
part in this campaign, and calls on them to remain mobilised for the rest of
the legislative procedure.

After years of inaction and only a few months before the end of her term in
office, EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes1 presented a proposal for the
regulation of the Telecom Single Market in Europe in September 2013.
Although it claimed to contain a real defence of Net Neutrality, it in fact
introduced a version of the principle that stripped it of all real meaning.
Despite much criticism2, Kroes rushed the adoption by the European
Parliament so that it could be voted before the European elections of May
2014.

This positive vote is the direct result of a very strong citizen
mobilisation3 and the constructive work of Amelia Andersdotter (Greens/EFA 
SE), Catherine Trautmann (S&D  FR), Petra Kammerevert (S&D  DE) and
Marietje Schaake (ALDE  NL). The adopted text contains a rigorous
definition of Net Neutrality and grants it a normative scope4.
While allowing telecom operators to develop offers of Internet access with a
quality of service optimised for specific applications that could not run
effectively on the so-called "best-effort" Internet, this text provides a
good framework for "specialised services" that ensures non-discrimination
between the providers of such applications5.

Support La Quadrature du Net!

Even if some amendments that aimed to give the text greater coherence and
clarity or lay out stronger enforcement mechanisms were not adopted, the
text passed today represents a clear victory for the protection of the free
Internet. This is especially true in comparison of Neelie Kroes' original
proposal. La Quadrature du Net warmly thanks all citizens and organisations
who took part in this campaign for Net Neutrality, as well as the MEPs who
fought hard for the free Internet in the last days of their mandate.

In the coming weeks, as the legislative procedure on the regulation will
proceed to its next phase, we must maintain the greatest vigilance. It is
now to the Council of the European Union (which, along with the European
Parliament, is the EU co-legislator), to deliberate next 5 and
6 juin of this year. As national governments are easily influenced by
dominant telecom groups, continued public interest and mobilisation is now
necessary to ensure that the improvements to the text achieved today are not
dismantled6.

Today's victory on Net neutrality is the most important one for the
protection of freedom online in Europe since the rejection of ACTA in July
2012. The EU Parliament made clear that the Internet commons should be free
of corporate capture, and remain a space where freedom of communication and
innovation can thrive. We warmly thank all organisations, citizens, and
members of the EU Parliament who worked to achieve this result. We should
now all remain watchful for the remainder of the procedure, as the text now
goes to the EU Council where many national governments will seek to
undermine Net neutrality provisions so as to please their homegrown telecom
oligopolies. Even though we won today, the fight for the free Internet
continues! concluded Félix Tréguer, co-founder of the advocacy group La
Quadrature du Net.

    1. Neelie Kroes is the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda.
In the months following her appointment as Commissioner in 2010, her
position on the question of Net Neutrality evolved from unmitigated support
to an alignement with the demands of telecom operators' lobbies.

    2. A leaked criticism of a draft by Viviane Reding's services says for
example that such limited possibilities of accessing Internet content and
services of their choice would run counter to the stated objectives of the
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.:
http://www.edri.org/NN-negativeopinions
    The European Data Protection Supervisor wrote in a press release
published on 15 November that Neelie Kroes' proposal voids the principle of
Net Neutrality of substance" "because of the almost unlimited right of
providers to manage Internet traffic.

    3. The number of phone calls to MEPs for this vote even surpassed the
one for the final vote on ACTA in 2012.

    4. See articles 2.14, 23.1 and paragraph 1.

    5. See articles 2.15 and 23.2.

    6. For instance, only a few hours before today's vote, the French
government joined the corporate lobbies to support [FR] a definition of
"specialised services" that is incompatible with a real definition of Net
Neutrality an the principle of non-discrimiation. This provides an idea of
what will be the forces at work in the Council. It is therefore essential
not to let this topic leave the public eye and collectively remind national
governments of where the public interest lies in the Net Neutrality debate.

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