I'm from Poland. It's pure BS propaganda. All lawyers say this putting on hold means nothing legally, and the famous "debate" we had on monday was ridiculous and made for publicity, they are just trying to save their butts and put the public to sleep.
So, until we all hear that ACTA is no more, don't get too excited please and act like everything is still on.
Well - Tusk admitted that there were certain problems with ACTA, so I consider it a big step. As for debate - yeah, it may not have been very nice, but what did you expect?
Somehow, I trust that the signing of ACTA was because Tusk was misinformed. We've made him rethink the whole thing, and he's starting to back off.
PO has much to lose if ACTA gets signed, and not much to gain. They seem to get it now.
This is what has really given me hope in this entire process. The shady back room deals sound great when it's just the content industry in the room - they know how to look cool, and who wouldn't want to be on the Cool Kids' side? But then the public finds out, and the public is really pissed - and that makes them think, "Why did I listen to those guys?"
If we can get the politicians of the world to think, "Why did I listen to those guys" more about every topic, the world will be a much better place.
This is not new. In case of software patents, the Council members of a given country have already decided (we had the minutes of the closed meeting) while advertising consultation and debate back home. It was outright a straight lie, which we could prove. And they got away with it for the time being ...but this will backfire, if it doesn't already, if you look at the EU and EU election turnout
(note: the Parliament is still the most voter-friendly EU body, compared to the Council and the Commission -- hopefully they will reject, as it was the case with software patents)
I would have never believed Eastern Europe would be leading the way in freedom. I guess when you have had to fight for it, it is actually valuable to you.
In 2006, we were in Budapest, watching TV, and they had a thing where you could SMS a number and your text would scroll across the screen. My daughter, then 12, was amazed that people were allowed to criticize the government in public like that.
My wife is Hungarian - I'm American and the kids have grown up in the States mostly. They're bilingual, but culturally essentially American, with some hybrid vigor from bicultural exposure.
A lot has changed since (again) in Hungary, and to many this is no longer the case, unfortunately.
The most popular call-in radio is being killed, because officials feel, that they need the frequency for another music station. It is an open secret, that it is the prime forum for the criticism of the current government.
For the record, the call-in show's radio station also obtained the frequency in a shady way, displacing classic fm to be a traffic news station (hence its original name), then ending up being the outlet of the most senior professional journalists -- whom have seen much of the old regime.
Yeah, my wife's Hungarian, and we're coming to Budapest this summer (and maybe staying; she still hasn't decided), so we follow this stuff. Orbán is trying to do everything at once and doing most of it wrong, and I really don't like his media policy. But come on - you don't need media to communicate in Budapest; everybody knows what's going on - because of the jokes they tell each other, if nothing else.
But if a radio show of this nature were shut down in America, most people wouldn't even notice. The media never criticize the people in power here, because the people in power simply own them outright. And by "people in power", of course, I don't mean the government. That hasn't been true for a long time.
In Hungary, this government has been really pushy (of course, the last government was far more corrupt), but Hungarians actually care about that.
Anyway, you don't need to worry, because my wife is going to be there in May and I'd hate to be in Orbán's shoes when she gets off the plane.
There were really big protests in Poland and quite a big protests here in Prague. It's a reaction to that, I think.
The feeling I get from here (Czech Republic) is that both the governing parties and the opposition don't particuralry care about ACTA (we are not an economy based on intellectual properties anyway), but they are afraid vocal activists from Czech Pirate Party will get young people's vote if they don't stop this. As I wrote earlier, people are getting angry here for many different reasons (mainly the corruption though), they don't want to add another thing with the ACTA.
Consider, that this generation of Poles is first since 1795, that did not had to fight for freedom :)
It is part of our culture to rebel, and there was nothing to rebel about recently (ok, there was, but people were divided on the most important matters, and ACTA is great as a common enemy). I wonder, if that's the case in other countries protesting right now.
Quite irrelevant to this link, but interesting to note here anyway:
in Slovakia, anti-ACTA protests are right now joined together with protests against the current political system, thanks to leaking of so-called "Gorilla" police file, that proves links of political parties to big money.
The reality of Czech and Slovakia is that corruption is much more prevalent than in the west. People are getting really angry here. But the message that these protests tell is also "I got noone to vote for".
Dude, look at the ongoing travesty in Washington and tell me again that Slovakia has more prevalent corruption. I'm just not sure I believe it. It's just less smooth and more obvious in a small country.
Maybe things are still a little better in US, but I wouldn't go as far as saying there's a dramatic difference. The real difference is that a lot of corrupted acts have been made legal in US, while in other countries they are not.
Well, like Putin & Co owning/controlling most of Russian enterprises larger than a certain threshold? Oil, machinery, aviation - you name it, they have it. Like not being able to get health care beyond the very basics without spending a fortune in bribes. Like having a price tag on signagures of everyone in parliament/government, or on becoming an MP or the like. Corruption can really be bigger problem than it is in the US, and when quality of life is so low, it becomes a problem of surviving it rather than it being an abstract long term threat to development or something.
FYI I'm currently in the middle of reading the book "Treasure Islands" about tax havens, which spends a lot of time explaining how these places play a key role in facilitating truly global corruption:
It's all well and good making your secret deals to make the rich richer, but when the people find out, they're often not too pleased. Central Europe still remembers throwing their bums out - and in some cases lining them up against a wall in the process - and so it's not too surprising they're the first to take action.
After growing up in the sixties listening to this commercial for Radio Free Europe, which was meant as much to highlight the west's freedom of expression as it was to advertise RFE
In all fairness, the Slovakia probably backed out because it's just a few weeks before parliamentary elections and politicians need to earn good points. There were anti-acta protest and petitions, yes, but not so strong as in Poland for example. The protests were also in the shadow of anti-corruption protests taking place in similar times (as was already mentioned in comments).
It's just so sad that all this "backing out" really means nothing after already signing the EC proposal.
> Some critics said the government’s decision violates the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969. In Article 18, the convention states that treaty signatories are “obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty.”
So, until we all hear that ACTA is no more, don't get too excited please and act like everything is still on.