European Parliament
Raül Romeva i Rueda  (Verts/ALE ),
in writing.
Against. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has today been consigned to history. The Greens/EFA Group has been voicing its concerns about this agreement since the outset of the shadowy negotiations, along with an ever-growing number of citizens. We welcome the support of a decisive majority of MEPs for rejecting ACTA today: this is the just and democratic response to the mass mobilisation against the agreement by citizens across Europe.
In addition to concerns about data protection and internet freedom, there were equally legitimate concerns about the potentially far-reaching implications of ACTA for fundamental rights, freedom of establishment and access to vital medicines. We welcome the fact that we can now move on from this sorry chapter. This vote is a milestone for European democracy and for the political debate on intellectual property protection in the digital age.
The EU must now begin an honest debate on intellectual property rights. A good start would be to recognise that 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 to develop individual solutions for these sectors. At EU-level, one of the priorities to that end should be finally tackling the much-needed reform of EU copyright law.

