ACTA Rejected By European Parliament

Grumbleduke writes "Today the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to reject the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Despite attempts by the EPP Group to delay the vote until after the Courts have ruled on its legality, the Parliament voted against the Treaty by 478 to 39; apparently the biggest ever defeat the Commission has suffered. However, despite this apparent victory for the Internet, transparency and democracy, the Commission indicated that it will press ahead with the court reference, and if the Court doesn't reject ACTA as well, will consider bringing it back before the Parliament."

Re:nice

[Jahta]

Well we're not quite out of the woods. The EC (unelected and largely unaccountable) haven't given this one up yet. But the scale of the No vote, and the likelihood that the European Court will find at least some parts of ACTA unconstitutional, is going to make it tough for even the EC to push it through.

Re:nice

[Elldallan]

The Court does have a limited say because it is supposed to investigate if ACTA is compatible with the framework treaties of the European Union, if they are Parliament can vote on it and either pass or reject ACTA which has already happened. However if the court finds that ACTA is incompatible with said framework treaties then it cannot be passed regardless of Parliament vote unless said framework treaties are changed as well. If the court finds that ACTA is ok then the Commission can remove whatever parts they think led to the rejection in Parliament and ask the Parliament to vote on the amended ACTA

Not only did they reject it...

[Yvanhoe]

... but they began to hate it too : image [imgur.com]

Re:nice

[Samalie]

The difference in this case is that ACTA isn't a piece of legislation written up by the EU that can be changed willy-nilly in order to secure the votes for passage.

ACTA is an international treaty that has been signed (but not ratified) by (most?) of the signatories' legislative bodies.

To change ACTA (to re-package, whatever) requires all the signatory nations to get back together & start re-negotiating the points of it. SImply put, the EU cannot alter ACTA for ratification independently.