Today the 4th of July, the European Parliament voted to reject the ACTA anti-counterfeiting trade agreement. The vote ends the prospect of the EU acceding to the treaty.
Alternattiva Demokratika joins The Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament, which, unlike others has been active on ACTA since the outset of the negotiations, in welcoming the vote.
AD spokesperson on Energy, Transport and IT, Ralph Cassar said that the rejection of ACTA today is the just and democratic response to the mass mobilisation by citizens across Europe against ACTA. In addition to concerns about data protection and internet freedom, there were equally legitimate concerns about the potentially far-reaching implications of ACTA on fundamental rights, freedom of establishment and access to vital medicines.
“There must be a EU-wide honest debate on how to approach IPR issues in the EU. There can be no sweeping, once-size-fits-all approach to intellectual property enforcement. Instead, there is a need to assess the different challenges facing different economic sectors and different aspects of intellectual property and develop individual solutions for these sectors.”