The European Parliament has today established its position on the EU-US Trade agreement. In the post-ACTA environment,  its stance on copyright is  waivering, as is the issue of transparency in the negotiations. But, unlike ACTA, TTIP is a broadly-scoped agreement, and the copyright industries  are the subject of a quite different controversy – the so-called cultural exception.  Moreover, another telecoms issue appears to have been entirely ignored.

Read more: EU-US trade talks: Parliament TTIP-toes around IPR & culture

A June deadline is looming for the EU Council of Ministers to give its blessing to  a mandate for EU –US trade talks. That’s when European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht would like to have it settled. The issue that may delay the mandate  is what to do about support for the European film industries. It's  an issue that splits the  Commission internally. The elephant in the room is copyright and IPR. Both issues lead to Hollywood.

Read more: EU-US trade talks – the Hollywood question

Following the demise of the Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) the EU and the US are having another go at it. Only now it is within the wrapper of an EU-US Trade Agreement.  Intellectual property rights (IPR)  remain at the heart of it, although this time it seems they will take a more softly-softly approach.

Read more: EU-US Trade agreement - where we diverge, let’s talk