Update 2 | EU Parliament rejects ACTA

Adds statement by Labour MEP Edward Scicluna, Nationalist MEPs, and Alternattiva Demokratika

The European Parliament today rejected the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in a 478 to 39 vote with 165 abstentions, after failed attempts by the European People's Party (EPP) to delay the decision.

The EPP's proposed postponement was rejected in a 420 to 255 vote with nine abstentions.

The European Court of Justice was investigating ACTA and was the reason behind its dismissal despite the intention to reduce piracy.

European internet activists protested against the agreement as impinging on internet freedoms and consider this rejection to be a significant victory for digital rights.

It was the greatest legislative defeat for the European Commission in Parliament according to Scottish MEP David Martin, the first to disprove the treaty and to recommend that the EU Parliament should not accept it after conducting in-depth investigations.

Despite the EU's overwhelming rejection of ACTA, the treaty could be ratified in six of the eight non-EU countries that signed it. It is considered to be highly unlikely that this will occur due to the outcome given by the EU. 

ACTA veto a 'victory for freedom' - Edward Scicluna

Labour MEP Edward Scicluna welcomed today's overwhelming defeat of ACTA, describing it as a "victory for freedom on the Internet".

Scicluna was speaking after MEPs in Strasbourg refused to consent to the deal negotiated by the European Commission. Under the Lisbon Treaty the European Parliament must give its consent in order to ratify international agreements negotiated by the Commission.

"This is a victory for freedom on the internet. Intellectual property is one of most valuable commodities of the European economy and we need to have clear rules to protect the rights of authors and performers," Scicluna said.

"But the main problem with Acta is its ambiguity. The sanctions are draconian and it is unclear how they would be applied. Internet service providers would have sweeping new powers to monitor our Internet use. We cannot have a system where people can lose their internet connection and face criminal prosecution for sharing downloaded music with their friends."

Last week the Netherlands became the latest country to halt ratification of ACTA. The Maltese government signed up to ACTA in January along with 21 other EU countries, many of whom have since cancelled their ratification process.

Along with the Parliament's Liberal and Green groups, the Socialist and Democrat group consistently voiced their concerns about treaty, particularly the way it had been negotiated and provisions on criminal sanctions. However, in resolutions adopted by MEPs in November 2010, the EPP, which includes Malta's two Nationalist MEPs, and the eurosceptic ECR group, welcomed the deal agreed by the Commission.

Today the EPP group sought to postpone the vote, having supported the treaty throughout its negotiation.

"I am pleased to see the latest U-turn from our two Nationalist MEPs, who have supported ACTA all the way through the negotiation process only to change their mind when public opinion turned against the treaty," Scicluna said.

"We would not be in this predicament if the EPP had not rubber-stamped the deal negotiated by the Commission. Acta has been flawed from the start. It was negotiated in secret and we only learned about it through Wikileaks in 2008, nearly three years into the talks."

Scicluna added that the Commission must now go back to the drawing board to reach a proportionate deal that protects copyright without harming personal freedom.

ACTA couldn't be supported - PN MEPs

Nationalist MEPs Simon Busuttil and David Casa voted against the ACTA agreement, because it "couldn't be supported in its current form". 

"Earlier on this year, we had insisted that we would only support it if we were completely certain that it does not impinge unduly on the freedom of internet users," Busuttil and Casa said in a joint statement. 

 "Today we acted consistently with that declaration. After six months of serious examination of the text of the agreement in the European Parliament, we came to the conclusion that the current text does not offer sufficient safeguards on internet freedom."

The two MEPs said that today's choice hadn't been ideal: "It was a choice between saying yes to ACTA because we support the international fight against counterfeiting and piracy and saying no to it because of the concerns it raised on internet freedom."

They insisted that they would have preferred if the vote was postponed until the European Court of Justice delivered its ruling on the compatibility of ACTA with human rights.

This request was however rejected.

"Given the choice between internet freedom and the fight against piracy, we felt that internet freedom should prevail and we voted accordingly," Busuttil and Casa added. 

"However, we hope that the European Commission can quickly find a solution for an international instrument to fight piracy and counterfeiting because this is necessary to protect jobs."

On Scicluna's comments, the two PN MEPs said that the Labour MEP failed to attend "one single committee meeting in the European Parliament that was debating ACTA as it was his duty to do as an MEP".  

"Over the past six months, we participated in all committee meetings and hearings on ACTA, submitted amendments and even intervened in the plenary debate. But Edward Scicluna was nowhere to be seen," they said.

"While he was quick to issue statements in Malta, he did absolutely nothing in the European Parliament. And now he wants to take the credit."

ACTA is dead - Alternattiva Demokratika

Green party Alternattiva Demokratika joined its European counterparts in welcoming the vote. AD spokesperson for energy, transport and IT Ralph Cassar said the rejection was "just and democratic response to the mass mobilisation by citizens across Europe against ACTA."

"There must be a EU-wide honest debate on how to approach intellectual property rights 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."