Bulgaria to ratify ACTA with reservations

Bulgaria will ratify the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) with reservations, became clear after the meeting of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov with representatives of the Associations of Telecommunications and Internet Users, yesterday.

"We have made a gentlemen's agreement to keep in force the current legislation," said Yanaki Ganchev, Chairman of the users’ organisation. He added that Prime Minister, Boyko Borissov, had promised that the National Assembly would ratify ACTA under specific conditions, and the agreement itself would not change the status and the situation of domestic Internet users. Ganchev said that Borissov had undertaken the commitment that current Bulgarian legislation would remain in force with the ratifying of the ACTA agreement.

The signing of ACTA gave rise to a wave of discontent both abroad and in our country. The objections are against the provisions, which pretending to protect copyrights, prescribe a total control over users in violation of their rights and freedoms. Representatives of the Association of Independent Internet Service Providers in the country declared that they were considering as incorrect and contrary to European policies for promotion of the information society, the attempt to change the presumption of "innocence until proven guilty" with the mentioned agreement. A group started an initiative on the Internet, which flooded the e-mails of our MEPs with claims that ACTA should not be signed.

Vice President of the Parliamentary Group of GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) Valentin Nikolov said to Klassa that the Prime Minister had undertaken the commitment that the country would sign ACTA under specific conditions, ensuring the freedoms and the rights of online users and countering the attempts and the possibility for control on the Internet traffic without a court request.

Despite the agreement with Prime Minister Borissov, yesterday, it became known that protest actions are being staged for 11 February - the day of worldwide outcry against ACTA. In Sofia, the procession is scheduled to start from the National Palace of Culture. Protests actions will take place in the cities of Varna, Veliko Tarnovo, and Burgas as well.