WRITTEN QUESTION E-1491/03 by Proinsias De Rossa (PSE) to the Commission. Article 10 challenges.
Date: 2003-05-02
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EC opinion, European treaties, Ireland, action for failure to fulfil an obligation, application of EU law, complaint to the Commission, power of implementation

20.3.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 70 E/47

The Commission presented in November 2001 a proposal for a Framework Decision (1), a legislative
instrument in the field of penal law to ensure that the same racist and xenophobic conducts are punishable
by the same penalties in all Member States and secondly, to improve and encourage judicial cooperation
by removing potential obstacles. The Commission’s approach on this issue is to ensure that racist and
xenophobic content on the Internet is criminalised in all Member States. The basic idea would be
contained in the principle, ‘what is illegal off-line is illegal on-line’. Moreover, the proposal also establishes
some minimum criteria as regards to jurisdiction for this type of offences. At present, negotiations on this
legislative instrument are blocked at Council and the Commission regrets that some Member States are not
willing to strengthening the Union ‘acquis’ contained in the Council Joint Action (2) adopted in 1996 on
this issue.

Regarding Community instruments, Article 15 of the Electronic Commerce Directive (3) lays down that
service providers who store information supplied by and at the request of a recipient of the service need to
expeditiously remove access to the information once they are informed of the illegality of this information.

Recital 48 of the Directive introduces the possibility for Member States to require hosting service providers
to apply ‘duties of care’ in order to detect and prevent illegal activity.

fifteen countries (cid:1) including ten Member States- have signed the Additional
At international
Protocol to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime, concerning the criminalisation of acts of a
racist and xenophobic nature, committed through the use of computer systems.

level,

The Safer Internet Action Plan (4) also offers scope for funding action against racism (hotlines and
awareness-raising) and the Safer Internet Forum which is being set up under the Action Plan will discuss
practical ways of co-operating in this respect.

(1) OJ C 75 E, 26.3.2002.
(2) OJ L 185, 24.7.1996.
(3) Directive 2000/31/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information

society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market, OJ L 178, 17.7.2000.

(4) COM(2002) 152 final.

(2004/C 70 E/050)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1491/03

by Proinsias De Rossa (PSE) to the Commission

(2 May 2003)

Subject: Article 10 challenges

Specifying the individual complaints and the EU directives or regulations concerned, could the Commission
indicate how many letters of formal notice and reasoned opinions have been issued against Ireland under
Article 10 of the EC Treaty since 1 May 1999?

Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(16 June 2003)

Since 1 May 1999 and further to the Commission’s reply to the Honourable Member’s oral question
H-0256/03 during question time at Parliament’s May 2003 session (1), two letters of formal notice were
sent on 15 May 2003 against Ireland under Article 226 of the EC Treaty.

The infringement procedures have been launched further to Commission investigations under its own
initiative and not following individual complaints.

(1) Written reply, 13.5.2003.