Prime Minister Tusk held a question-and-answer session on ACTA last week Courtesy of Flickr/Platforma RP

In the wake of the Polish government’s decision to freeze the ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), Prime Minister Donald Tusk has attempted to make Poland’s approach to the deal more transparent.

Mr Tusk held a question-and-answer session on ACTA last Monday that was attended by around 140 people, many of whom were members of the public. Others were able to ask questions via the Twitter and Facebook pages of the prime minister’s chancellery.

Poland’s PM started the session by again admitting the government may have been too hasty in signing the agreement, saying that a sufficient level of analysis had not been carried out on ACTA. He added that this “was not done out of malice.”

Many in Poland oppose ACTA, saying it will threaten freedom of speech, especially on the internet. Opposition has led to a number of street protests and the hacking of government websites.

Mr Tusk said he will do everything he can to address doubts about the deal.

“We will not ratify ACTA unless we are 100 percent sure that the debate will be an open one, and based on open documents and on transparency,” the PM said.

However, non-governmental organizations including Members of the Improvised Free Internet Congress, which includes the Helsinki Foundation, issued a statement prior to the Q&A session saying they did not believe the debate would be carried out in conditions of transparency and openness.

One of the participants in the debate said that if ACTA had been in force in the 1960s and 70s, the internet would never have come into existence. This comment was followed by applause from the audience.

ACTA obligations

Following the Q&A session, the Polish government published a list of commitments that Mr Tusk said it needs to meet before the agreement can be ratified.

One of the most important of these is the publishing of documents related to ACTA.

The Ministry of Administration and Digitization said in a statement that it will publish “all of the documents regarding ACTA which are in possession of the Polish authorities … it will [also] be looked into whether it is possible to publish the documents of the European Commission which are available in Poland.”

The ministry also promised to publish a commentary in which it explains how ACTA works, and how the details of the agreement would need to be applied so that they are compatible with the Polish legal system.

“Once we look through the legal system, we should then have a public discussion about how to define from scratch the idea of ‘fair use’ of copyrighted work, how to make sure the laws are clear and that they show balance between the necessities of punishing a crime and guaranteeing freedom,” the ministry explained.

Izabela Depczyk, Gareth Price