European Union members sign controversial anti-piracy treaty

All but five member states of the European Union signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade agreement (ACTA) in Tokyo on Thursday.

Following this announcement on Thursday, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the ACTA treaty quit on Friday in protest. Kader Arif said he had witnessed "never-before-seen manoeuvres" by officials. This is a developing story and we'll post more later.

While anger about US anti-piracy laws, SOPA and PIPA have dominated the headlines, the even more controversial ACTA proposals have quietly made it through another stage.

Peter Bradwell of the Open Rights Group told us: "ACTA poses a serious threat to freedom of expression online. By signing a treaty that was negotiated in secret, policy makers are demonstrating that they have completely failed to learn the lessons from the SOPA debacle and are still not listening to the voice of internet users around the world.

"Our attention is now trained on the European Parliament, which will be the first opportunity for citizens to tell policy makers why this is such a badly flawed treaty."

ACTA is controversial for a number of reasons. Just the day after the European Commission published new proposals for stronger data protection laws, ACTA may make some of these unenforceable.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the agreement has several features that raise "significant potential concerns for consumers' privacy".

There has been deep concern because of the secrecy surrounding the negotiations of ACTA. It would also operate outside of existing trade bodies, the World Trade Organisation and World Intellectual Property Organisation, which have also voiced concerns.

Alex Hanff of Privacy International said the way the agreement has been pushed through "is a total travesty and I fully support criticisms from various MEPs that the entire process has made a complete mockery of democracy".

But according to La Quadrature du Net, although the signing of ACTA by EU member states is "highly symbolic" it is "not the end of the road".

This citizen advocacy group said people can still challenge the agreement before the final vote in the EU Parliament; which cannot happen before June.

Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for the organisation said: "In the last few days, we have seen encouraging protests by Polish and other EU citizens, who are rightly concerned with the effect of ACTA on freedom of expression, access to medicines, but also access to culture and knowledge.

"This important movement will further build up. European citizens must reclaim democracy, against the harmful influence of corporate interests over global policy making.

"For each of the coming debates and votes in the EU Parliament's committees before the final vote this summer, citizens must engage with their representatives."

The EU member states that have signed the ACTA agreement are the UK, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Other countries that signed in October last year are Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States.