The 4th of July is usually known as American Independence Day, but in 2012 it’s been overshadowed by events in Europe. First it was rejection of Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty Agreement in the European Parliament at around 1PM. Which was rejected by 478 MEPs, while 165 MEPs absteined from the vote and only 39 MEPs voted for it. As soon as we were able to process the votes, I looked at computer screen, and what do I see..., a discovery of Higgs Boson!

Last Tuesday, I attended an event at the European Parliament on the Internet Governance. It’s one in a series of events discussing the future of the Internet from the perspective of government. Governance of the Internet is usually divided into two parts, a technological part, from a perspective of an engineer, and a regulatory view taken from the perspective of government. Number of states would like nothing more than to destroy the decentralised architecture of the Internet, which makes it such a unique and powerful tool to use.

On 4th of June, European Parliament hosted European Writers´ Council 2012 Authors´ Rights Conference on ´Striking the Right Balance between access, fair remuneration and authors´ rights´

Last Friday, 1st of June, Green Group hosted a conference of Green Press officers and Webmasters. As Amelia is part of the Green Group, I had an opportunity to attend and learn about how best to utilize new media to connect with people.

This upcoming Tuesday, 15th of May, Ms Amelia´s Andersdotter´s office is organising a book launch inside the European Parliament. The book ´SHARING: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age´ is written by a Net culture scholar Philippe Aigrain, with contributions from his daughter, Suzanne Aigrain. As the title of the book suggests, it describes file sharing of digital cultural works between individuals, and attempts to address the real challenges facing culture in a digital world.

European Parliament produced fruitful discussion on the Internet issues and in particularly ACTA.

The first meeting was held on Tuesday, based on ´New forms of online advertising´, as current trademark laws are complex and impose particular burden on SME´s (Small-medium enterprises). European Commission is proposing to harmonise trademark regulations acrossEurope, between different national laws. So that small and medium size companies could take full advantage of access to the global market that the Internet offers. 

European Commission has initiated reforms to the Data protection directive and regulations for the public and private sector. Current patchwork of national rules with current European legal framework, were drawn up in the early 90s and came into force in 1995, at the time only 1% of European population were using the internet. These outdated laws put uncertainty on creating a strong single digital market, and require an update.

My name is Edvinas and I had a lucky opportunity to be an intern at Ms Amelias office in Brussels. Last year I graduated with International Relations BA degree from Keele University and will be assisting with work at ‘Committee on International Trade’.

I was born in Lithuania, Kaunas, and permanently  lived there till the age of 11. Next 11 years, second half of my life I spent studying in Britain. As soon as I graduated I moved to Brussels, Belgium, to gain practical work experience.