Catherine Bearder MEP

Catherine Bearder (born 1949) is a Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament, representing South East England.

ACTA

Ms. Bearder voted against ACTA. Regarding her vote, she wrote:

"...we must weigh up carefully between the need to protect property rights and our knowledge-based economy and these fundamental freedoms.

ACTA falls short in both regards. On the one hand, it is ‘an anti-counterfeiting agreement without the counterfeiters’ as countries such as China, which is a major source of counterfeit products, have not signed up to it. This undermines the entire creditability of ACTA and demonstrates that it cannot achieve its aim to combat global counterfeiting. At the same time, ACTA poses serious risks to the fundamental rights of people in the UK and EU in its provisions on digital goods and obligations on internet service providers. Only this week, the European Data Protection Supervisor said that ACTA would allow ‘indiscriminate or widespread monitoring’ of internet users which are ‘disproportionate’ while not providing sufficient safeguards. Approving such legislation would be against the fundamental civil liberties principles of the Liberal Democrats and we have therefore decided to reject ACTA."

Her party colleague, Bill Newton Dunn was the only British MEP to vote for ACTA.