Two weeks ago, after the first hactivists’ attacks hit the Polish government website and the first protests spread through the country, I blogged about how Polish people opposed the ACTA bill. I’d love to provide you with an update now, since I am happy to say -- things are happening.

On 3 February 2012, Poland announced it halted the ratification process as it "had made insufficient consultations before signing the agreement in late January, and it was necessary to ensure it was entirely safe for Polish citizens." Last Saturday a meeting with the Ombudsman re ACTA in the historical venue of the Gdańsk Shipyard took place. At the same time, a weekend “improvised” congress for the ACTA opponents started in Warsaw -- it was organized by the Polish NGO community at the Polytechnics University. Polish Minister for Digitalization, Michał Boni who has recently become a very busy man, was present at both of these meetings, as well as at the third, most important one, that took place last Monday, in the chancellery of the Polish Prime Minister, Daniel Tusk. The latter meeting took 7 hours, and was video streamed as well as live-tweeted and commented in the real time (#debataACTA). The meeting hosted by the Polish MP was the closest we got to a public consultation that were so far overlooked in the entire ACTA process timeline. Some, especially the participants of the last weekend congress, who officially chose not to attend the meeting, are not satisfied though. 

The primary demand of the protesters is for the prime minister to rescind ACTA, which is an action permissible by the law, they would also like to see ACTA being voted for in the general referendum. The Prime Minister on the other hand, declares that the signature will not be removed. However, the parliament voting over ACTA (in place to ratify -- or not -- the bill) will be on hold until the doubts surrounding this bill-to-be would not be cleared out.

Everyone seems to be surprised: the Polish prime minister has never seen such a quick, mass and well-organized resistance movement against any of the previous controversial political steps he took. “The people” united in the anti-ACTA movement (that could be easily called the Polish  occupy/indignants movement supporters) on the other hand, feel unexpectedly empowered -- their voices have been heard. 

Nevertheless, to hear one another and acknowledge the existence of another point of view is not enough. The yesterday’s seven hours debate showed very clearly that even though we pretend to listen, there is no real communication involved. I am very much looking forward to the further developments, as the general European protests against ACTA are coming up this weekend. What I hope for is for Poland as well as other 22 European Union countries to unsign the document, and for the remaining members Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Netherlands and Slovakia to block their internal signing procedures after completion of their respective domestic procedures. I hope that European Union will not sign ACTA in its current form. I hope for the real public consultations to take place, and to become an obligatory (and logical!) step on a way to ratify this and every bill.  

Stay tuned!