The European Commission hosted a fascinating consultation on ACTA today. Luc Devigne, the lead European negotiator, opened with a brief presentation and proceeded to field questions for over an hour. The full consultation video is available online. The discussion touched on many issues including Devigne arguing that the WTO consistently blocked any attempt to address IP enforcement issues and stating that the treaty is limited to enforcement and not new substantive provisions (this assumes that anti-circumvention rules are a matter of enforcement, not substance).
The two big issues of the day, however, were three strikes and the European Parliament ACTA resolution. On three strikes, Devigne repeatedly stated that the EU was bound by EU law and that it was not supporting any inclusion of three strikes in ACTA. In fact, Devigne went further in claiming that no one had even proposed the possibility of three strikes. This despite the fact that a memo produced by his own department stated:
