The EU's Eastern European constituents have been under enormous trade pressure to sign onto ACTA, the copyright treaty negotiated in secret at the behest of the US Trade Rep and the entertainment lobby. There's widespread rebellion in Slovenia, Poland and Bulgaria, and now Romania's Prime Minister has admitted, "he did not hold any information on the circumstances in which Romania had adopted the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement." Meanwhile, the Czech Republic's reviewing its ACTA involvement.(via TechDirt)

  • Henrik Moltke
    • oasisob1

      He’s been offered a job as a lobbyist for the MPAA.

    • http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

      Ha, I wonder if he would have even copped to not knowing what ACTA was about if he wasn’t leaving.

      “hell, I dunno. What do I look like, a lawmaker or something? Peace out, morons.”

  • ialreadyexist

    If all that’s required to be a PM is to sign whatever’s put in front of you without bothering to read it or understand it, I’ll do the job for half the salary.  Heck, I can do that in my underwear at home if they’ll accept faxed documents. Same goes for US Congress and Senate jobs, I suppose.

  • http://twitter.com/jcstrabo H.

    No worries, the EU commission already introduced another treaty, a new “improved” version of IPRED (the one Sweden already has, and which just helped one industry: VPN providers), on the table, which would top even ACTA (although it would be EU only). I think they play the “just introduce enough treaties, everyone will sign at least one”-game.

    IPRED: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/iprenforcement/directives_en.htm

    • digi_owl

       Yep, the “legislate by attrition” game is thick and heavy these days. Think of it as a reverse filibuster.

  • TheMudshark

    I would be surprised if the Austrian prime minister even knew THAT he signed ACTA. These people are so clueless it´s not even funny anymore.

    • guanto

      I’d be surprised if the Austrian prime minister even knew he existed ;-).

      (Austria’s head of government is the chancellor.)

      • TheMudshark

        Thanks for the correction, you are right of course. Seems I couldn´t think of the right word when I posted it. The rest still applies.

  • http://twitter.com/tipul07 Andrei

    Romanian PM said he doesn’t know anything about Romania signing ACTA. Actually Communications Minister signed ACTA, but he didn’t know anything about it. He justified that we signed along very respectful countries such as US, “NORTH KOREA” LOL!

    • digi_owl

       North Korea signed it?!

  • http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch

    What kind of government is that?

    1) One you should get rid of ASAP
    2) In court, stupidity is not a defense either.
    3) Do yo really believe that “wuh?” attitude of the PM, really?

  • http://www.peterbagge.com/ Buddy Bradley

    fwiw I can’t imagine Hungary will join its Central European neighbors in opposing ACTA. The government here is cheerfully dismantling democracy on its own anyway, ACTA would be just another drop in a sea of anti-democratic measures for them.