Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said
that his government had made insufficient consultations before signing the agreement in late January, and it was necessary to ensure it was entirely safe for Polish citizens.
Although it is technically a trade agreement, ACTA is effectively an international treaty aimed at criminalising copyright infringement and associated activities.
...
Poland has seen the biggest protests against ACTA, with thousands demonstrating on the streets last week. Hackers believed to be associated with Anonymous attacked Tusk's website, as well as the European Parliament site, after the signing.
Critics of ACTA say it has insufficient safeguards for online liberties, particularly in signing countries that do not already have strong principles of freedom of speech and expression. In addition, the agreement negotiations, which took place without the contributions of civic groups or elected representatives, have been widely described as undemocratic.
ZD Net
As of now Germany and The Netherlands (among 5 other countries) have refused to sign ACTA. It's difficult to see ACTA working without Germany and The Netherlands unless other countries are exerting considerable pressure on them. Considering that none of ACTA's 31 signatories have ratified the treaty it seems that ACTA will die a very public and ignomious death.
Now all we need is for the US to rescind their agreement as well.
EDIT 2/16/2012
The government of Bulgaria, which had already signed ACTA, announced that it would not seek ratification of the treaty.
ACTA dissed in Bulgaria, too
I think you are overly optimistic, but I hope you're correct.
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with EU politics but I don't see ACTA passing. For ACTA to work it needs all major countries to actively enforce the provisions *and* for them to pressure non-signatories to enter the agreement.
DeleteI think that ACTA, as it stands now, will not pass. I think that soon enough a new "agreement" will be tried. Hopefully the new version will make sense. And, if it doesn't, that this new agreement will be stopped in the same way that ACTA is being stopped.