this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 278 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (34 children)

This seems to be referencing Regulation (EU) 654/2014, an EU law which allows the EU to unilaterally enact countermeasures against countries that break the WTO's rules.

The countermeasures listed in article 5 are:

  • Imposing tarriffs and customs duties
  • Trade restrictions/quotas
  • Cancelling contracts between the EU and the target country
  • Cancelling the target country's intellectual property rights (e.g. patents/copyrights)
  • Banning public procurement from the target country
  • Implementing price penalties for public procurement from the target country

The law was amended in Regulation (EU) 2021/167 in response to the Trump (and now Biden) administrations blocking the appointment of judges to the WTO and using a loophole to kill the WTO's enforcement mechanism.

More context from the EU parliament:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/652021/EPRS_BRI(2020)652021_EN.pdf

The fact that the EU can just suspend American patents and copyrights is pretty insane. Could be some huge benefits for European companies and movie pirates.

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