Guess what! Elections are in four months, which gives everyone less than three months to wrap up the files they have been working on for years. Copyright, terrorist content, privacy open data, disinformation - everything's hot and everything's messy. So much so that Brexit becomes a side-issue with Germany’s FM using the wrong flag emoji for Ireland getting plenty attention. But back to our issues:

Copyright Reform - It's Stalling, But Is It Stumbling?: With time running out and after the Parliament negotiators and the Romanian Presidency seemed have agreed on workable compromises, there was a realistic expectation that we might have final deal last week. But alas, a whopping 11 Member States voted against it. And while seeing such a solid blocking minority supported by large countries like Germany, Italy and Poland gives hope, we shouldn’t think it’s over.

Copyright Reform - Macron Calls Merkel: A Council majority now basically depends on on Germany giving up opposition. And Germany’s red line is that small and medium sized platforms must be carved out of the new liability rules (Article 13). Something France vehemently opposes. If the two countries agree on this issue, we’re likely to see a reform. This is highly political, which is why Merkel received a phone call from Macron yesterday. We don’t know yet how it played out.

TERREG - Fixing anti-terrorist measures: There is a proposal to lay out new rules on how platforms have to deal with terrorist content online. Wikimedia cares because:

a) We fall fully under the scope.

b) The proposal contains measures leading to automatic content filtering.

c) Referrals are broad and would allow government agencies to demand removal of legal content with insufficient judicial oversight.

We are now working with the parliamentary committees to propose improvements, such as better definition of targeted content, redress mechanisms, transparency rules and more precisely defined scope. We expect committee votes to take place throughout February and March, but would be surprised to see this regulation adopted by this legislature.

More Open Data - A Quick & Dirty Reform: Now this was quick! A trilogue deal on the Directive formerly known as the “Public Sector Information Directive” was reached last week. Henceforth it shall be known as the “Directive on Open Data and Public Sector Information”. Bottom line, it is a good step forward in this field. There situations in in which public bodies can restrict re-use of and charge for access to data have been further limited. A number of “high value datasets” will be opened up across the EU, such as company registers, transport and geospatial data. For these, APIs must be provided. The Commission might edit the list of such "high value datasets" without new reform. It will set up a working group.

Disinformation - Commission Rattles Sabre: The major commercial online platforms signed on to a Code of Practice by which they vowed to take measures against disinformation ahead of the European Parliament elections in May. They were partially motivated to sign up to this by the Commission's threat to regulate if they don't. A first assessment of measures taken is out and unsurprisingly the EU wants more. But as there is virtually no time left to regulate before the elections, the main coercion instrument is gone. It will be interesting to observe how the measures play out in practice over the next few months. On a somewhat related note, discussions within the Bulgarian Wikimedia Community to close down Bulgarian Wikinews are ongoing. Part of the reason is that it has been misused for the spread of disinformation in the past.

In the neighbourhood - Serbia Looks to Brussels for Copyright: The Serbian government is looking into updating their copyright rules and is looking to Brussels for inspiration. The OSCE organised an event at which yours truly and the President of the European Federation of Journalists argued next to Serbian government representatives about the related right for press publishers. Still at working group stage, so no decisions have been taken yet.  

Big Fat Brussels Meeting - Date Is Set: We are ready to call it! The dates of this year’s Big Fat Brussels Meeting will be 1-2 June. Sorry to the ones who can't, but the mighty dudle has spoken. This will be exactly one week after the EP elections, so we will focus on making outreach plans targeted at the newly elected. More details soon.

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This and previous reports on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor