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Voting behaviour of member of European Parliament

regarding the European Union international trade agreements:

Why did the European Parliament reject

the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement?

Ching-Yi Chen∗

Paper prepared for the ECPR General Conference 2015,

26-29 August 2015, Université de Montréal

Abstract

On 4th July 2012, the European Parliament (EP) first exercised its new power

to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) by an

overwhelming majority. Empirical research has yet fully to explain what

determine the voting behaviour of member of the European Parliament

(MEPs) on the ACTA. This paper serves to bridge the gap in our

understanding by analysing the roll-call votes related to the ACTA in the EP. It

aims to investigate whether MEPs’ ideological preferences, national party

preferences, national interests, or European political groups can ultimately

determine MEPs voting decisions. Using logistic regression, it finds MEPs’

ideological preferences and political parties, rather than the national economic

factors, are better explanations for the MEPs’ voting behaviour on the ACTA.

Most importantly, the statistical results also points out that MEPs’ decisions on

the ACTA is primarily driven by the level of issue salience on the Internet (as

per Google searches) in each member state. In other words, MEPs voting

behaviour on the ACTA cannot simply be explained by the traditional theory of

EU legislative politics. In this regard, the ACTA is a very unique case that

needs to be investigated.

Key words: European Parliament, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement,

EU legislative politics, roll-call votes ∗!!Ching-Yi Chen is currently a MA candidate in Political Science at the National Taiwan University and he also has an MSc in Politics and Government in the EU at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2013-2014). Email: qqvoyage@Gmail.com

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1. Introduction

The Lisbon Treaty has significantly strengthened the power of the European

Parliament (EP) in the formulation of the trade policy. First, the EP can

provide or withhold its consent to international trade agreements that the EU

concluded with third countries and EU’s trade-related legislation follows the

ordinary legislative procedure. Second, the Commission is obliged to

incorporate the EP’s resolutions or opinions into its negotiation agenda

(Kleimann, 2011; Lore Van den Putte, Ferdi De Ville, & Jan Orbie,

Forthcoming). Consequently, the political dominance of the Commission and

Council in the EU trade policy has been challenged significantly. On 4th July

2012, the EP first exercised its new power to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting

Trade Agreement (ACTA) by an overwhelming majority. The centre objective

of the ACTA was to combat extensive international trade in goods infringing

intellectual property rights (IPR) that undermines the legitimate interests of the

right holders (Matthews, 2012). Ironically, the legitimacy of the ACTA itself

was also questioned by its opponents. Thus, the case of the ACTA poses a

fascinating puzzle: Why did the MEPs reject the ACTA?

The main reason the EU negotiated the ACTA with other countries was that

the Commission believed that an international enforcement standard was

crucial for combating infringements of IPR; in particular, the existing

framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Intellectual

Property Organization (WIPO) failed to achieve adequate progress in

targeting the counterfeit goods in the trade markets. For instance, in 2005, the

Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated

that international trade in counterfeit and pirated products amounts to USD

200 billion, excluding digital products (European Parliament, 2012a). As a

result, the EU, US, Japan, Australia, Canada, Korea, Mexico, Morocco,

Singapore and Switzerland started negotiations for a plurilateral ACTA since

October 2007 (Matthews, 2012). By negotiating a new international

framework, these developed countries wanted to achieve effective schemes

to tackle the trade loss of counterfeit goods and online piracy (USTR, 2009).

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On the other hand, data protection and individual privacy are core values of

the EU. The EP has been very consistent in its defence of strong data

protection controls (Ripoll Servent & MacKenzie, 2011). Many MEPs were

concerned that the ACTA would empower governments to infringe the privacy

of individual citizens. Additionally, the ACTA negotiations had a lack of

transparency at the very start since the negotiating governments kept top

secret its core negotiating texts. After the EU signed the ACTA in January

2012, a growing public opposition began to turn against the agreement.

Massive street protests and public online petitions laid pressure on the EU

and member states to postpone the legislative procedures. In July 2012, the

EP finally refused to give its consent to the ACTA.

Recent research indicates that the successful campaign of anti-ACTA social

movement organisations and high public salience of the ACTA are the main

reasons for decision-makers to reject the ACTA in the EP (Dür & Mateo,

2014; Parks, 2013). Indeed, the issue of the ACTA was strongly contested

between the political salience of fundamental rights and the economic

interests of IPR and in the European countries. This would split MEPs into

new segments: those with normative concerns of civil rights and individual

freedom and those with urgent economic interests in the national constituents.

However, there is no empirical study on voting behaviour of MEPs in the

issues of the ACTA yet. Consequently, it is essential to further investigate

whether MEPs’ ideological preferences, national party preferences, national

interests, or European political groups can ultimately determine MEPs voting

decisions.

An answer to these questions is provided in this research by analysing the

determinants of MEPs’ voting behaviour on the issues of the ACTA in the

Seventh European Parliament (2009-2014). Using logistic regression, this

quantitative research points out that although some national economic

interests of member states affect the attitude of MEPs towards the ACTA,

these determinants are not consistently significant across all models. In

contrast, the findings show that the level of issue salience of the ACTA on the

Internet (as per Google searches) is the strongest determinant of MEPs’

voting behaviour in the rejection of the ACTA. In other words, with more public

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attention in the member states, MEPs are more likely to take political

responsibility and respond positively to the public opinion on the issue of the

ACTA.

The article is organised as follows. Section 2 briefly introduces the

background of the ACTA in the EP. Section 3 discusses key issues and

actors’ policy positions on the ACTA. Section 4 analyses the outcomes of

three key roll-call votes. Section 5 describes the statistic models and variables

it uses to investigate the determinants of MEPs voting behaviour. Section 6

presents the statistical results and Section 7 concludes the findings.

2. ACTA in the European Parliament

In May 2008, the Wikileaks published the leak document which revealed a

discussion paper on a possible unilateral ACTA. It indicated that the

agreement shall strengthen common standards for IPR enforcement to

combat global infringements of IPR, particularly in the context of counterfeit

goods or piracy on the Internet (WikiLeaks, 2008). This was the first time that

the public understood the existence of the ACTA negotiations. As a result, the

EP took a critical view on the secretive approach of the Commission from the

beginning. In March 2009, the EP called on the Commission to ‘immediately

make all documents related to the ongoing international negotiations on the

ACTA publicly available (European Parliament, 2010a)’. Furthermore, in

March 2010, the EP adopted a resolution, urged for the Commission to

publish the relevant documents and conduct an impact assessment of the

implementation of the ACTA regarding fundamental rights and data protection.

Otherwise, the Parliament reserves the right to issue the ACTA to the CJEU

(European Parliament, 2010a). Consequently, the Commission finally agreed

to publish the draft documents in April 2010.

The ACTA was finalised in October 2011. The EU and 22 member states

signed the agreement in January 2012. The consolidated text includes 45

articles that establish an international legal framework for enforcing existing

IPR, targeting counterfeit goods and copyright infringements on the Internet. It

lays down obligatory and voluntary enforcement measures to be adopted by

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countries that have joined the agreement. As a result, it contains several

provisions, which fall partly under the EU exclusive competence and partly

under shared EU/member state competence (European Parliament, 2012a).

According to the Lisbon Treaty, the agreements covering IPR need to be

adopted by the Council under a unanimity rule. In addition, the ACTA is a

mixed agreement so that the signatures need to be followed by ratifications of

27 member states and the EP (European Commission, 2010).

Nearly at the same time, citizen groups organised ‘anti-ACTA days’, including

massive demonstrations on streets in opposition to the ACTA (Dür & Mateo,

2014). Over 2.8 million people signed the online petitions to call on MEPs to

reject the ACTA (European Parliament, 2012a). The opposition primarily

argued that the ACTA would empower governments to impose Internet

censorship and infringe the fundamental rights of citizens. These protests

successfully brought the issue of Internet freedom to widespread public

attention (Dür & Mateo, 2014) because it would affect almost every individual

citizen who is associated with the digital world. When the public opposition

strengthened in February 2012, a series of European governments

suspended their national ratification processes (Dür & Mateo, 2014; LSE

EUROPP, 2012). The Commission also decided to refer the ACTA to the

Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in order to verify its

compatibility with the EU acquis regarding freedom of expression and

information or data protection and the right to intellectual property

(Euobserver, 2012; European Commission, 2012a).

In the EP, the rapporteur of Committee on International Trade (INTA)

presented his recommendation for the EP to reject the ACTA. He pointed out

that the unintended consequences of the ACTA texts could be the potential

threats to civil liberties: ‘Given the vagueness of certain aspects of the text

and the uncertainty over its interpretation, the European Parliament cannot

guarantee adequate protection for citizens’ rights in the future under the

ACTA (European Parliament, 2012g)’. On 4 July 2012, the EP rejected the

ACTA by 478 votes to 39 with 165 abstentions (European Parliament, 2012a).

After the EP’s rejection, the Commission announced that it would maintain its

request to the CJEU for an opinion on whether the ACTA is compatible with

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the acquis (European Commission, 2012b; European Parliament, 2012i).

Nevertheless, on 19 December 2012, the Commission withdrew its request to

review the ACTA at the CJEU (RT, 2012b), which means that the ACTA is

dead and will never be adopted in the EU.

3. Issues and actors

The case of the ACTA is different from other EU legislative proposals. It went

through a unique legislative passage in the EP. MEPs exercised the

resolutions to express their point of view on the ACTA. According to the

Lisbon Treaty, the Commission is obliged to incorporate the EP’s resolutions

or opinions into its negotiation agenda (Kleimann, 2011). Although the EP has

no formal power to participate in negotiations, the Commission is required to

keep the EP informed of the progress of the negotiations (European

Commission, 2010; Kreilinger, 2012). Moreover, the ACTA is to be submitted

to the EP for its consent after the Commission finalised the negotiating

directives. There is no opportunity for the MEPs to bargain over several

readings on amendments to measure and question in the consent procedure

(Corbett, Jacobs, & Shackleton, 2011). The resolutions on the issues of the

ACTA can represent the policy preferences of each MEP and the political

groups in the EP. To capture the determinants of the MEPs’ voting behaviour

on the ACTA, it is essential to analyse the EP’s resolution regarding proposals

on the ACTA as the object of study. This section introduces the main issues

and positions of the factors influencing these issues.

(1) Liberal stance

At the early stage, the EP had limited information about the on-going

negotiations of the ACTA until the leaked documents were published. MEPs

were generally concerned about the lack of transparency of the ACTA

negotiations and wished to have access to the texts and summaries of the

negotiations. In light of the enforcement of the Lisbon Treaty on 1st December

2009, the EP became more confident that it should have the rights to exercise

the new consent power (Ripoll-Servent, 2011). The support towards the

resolution by all political groups shown on 10th March 2010 shows the EP’s

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strong ambition on the issues of the ACTA. First, it condemned the secretive

approach conducted by the Commission and third countries behind closed

doors. MEPs wished to be fully associated to the legislative process. Second,

it specifically pointed out that the ACTA shall not create an obligation to

disconnect people from the Internet because of illegal downloads. Otherwise,

it reserves the right to refer the ACTA to the court. Third, it called on the

Commission to conduct an impact assessment of the implementation of the

ACTA with regard to fundamental rights and data protection prior to any EU

agreement on a consolidated the ACTA text (European Parliament, 2010a).

As a result, the resolution showed the EP’s muscle to fight for a liberal stance

of fundamental rights and data protection. Figure 1 shows the policy positions

between the main actors in the resolution.

Figure 1: Distributional line: Resolution on transparency (10th March 2010)

Source: Author’s own estimations

(2) Liberal/Restrictive

Nevertheless, in the next stage, the EP slightly changed its liberal stance on

the issues of the ACTA for the first time. In fact, the EP was seriously divided

over which position it should take after the Commission published the

consolidated text of the ACTA. The majority finally supported a resolution with

clear endorsement of the ACTA on 24th November 2010 (EurActiv, 2010).

Interestingly, the conflict was between the left–right political preferences. The

centre-left groups were sceptical about the ACTA provisions because it may

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allow the governments to favour IPR holders to the detriment of citizens. For

instance, the governments may search travellers’ personal luggage at borders

or snoop on Internet users. The ACTA might also hamper access to legitimate

medicines in the developing countries. In contrast, the centre-right groups

viewed the ACTA as a protective shield for the European industry. The ACTA

offers protection to the IPR of artists and creators on the Internet. Therefore,

the centre-left groups and the centre-right groups proposed their own motion

for a resolution on 24th Nov 2010, respectively.

Firstly, the centre-left groups called on the Commission to present a precise

interpretation of provisions and conduct an assessment of the impact of the

implementation of the ACTA on fundamental rights and data protection

because these are the core values of the EU. Secondly, it asked the

Commission to clarify the legal basis of implementing the ACTA. Thirdly, and

most importantly, the proposal highlighted directly that the EP would reserve

the right to withhold its consent to the ACTA and make the possible consent

to the ACTA, conditional on full cooperation on this resolution (European

Parliament, 2010b). The Commission did not follow the resolution of 10th

March 2010 to conduct an assessment of the impact. The centre-left groups

prepared to take a stronger position on the issue. Obviously, this proposal

could have a potential (negative) influence on the progress of the on-going

negotiations. As a result, the centre-right groups did not agree with the

approach, and they issued another version of resolution proposal in the

plenary session as well.

The centre-right groups welcomed the ACTA because it is on the right

direction to help countries better enforce international measures against

counterfeit goods. Moreover, it emphasised that the ACTA will not change the

EU acquis in terms of IPR enforcement. Interestingly, this centre-right

proposal did not request an impact assessment from the Commission. It just

called on the Commission to ‘confirm’ that the implementation of the ACTA

will have no impact on fundamental rights and data protection (European

Parliament, 2010d). Therefore, the centre-right group’s version could be seen

as a ‘pro-ACTA resolution’. Finally, the centre-right groups narrowly won the

votes and the EP made a concession regarding civil rights issues. The main

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divergence between MEPs was the ‘liberal/restrictive’ aspect of the content of

the ACTA at this stage. Figures 2 and 3 summarise the distance of policy

positions between main political groups on the ‘liberal/restrictive’ dimension.

Figure 2: Distributional line: centre-left groups’ proposal (24th Nov 2010)

Source: Author’s own estimations

Figure 3: Distributional line: centre-right groups’ proposal (24th Nov 2010)

Source: Author’s own estimations

(3) Fast/Slow

The ACTA was finalised in October 2011. The EU and 22 member states

signed the agreement in January 2012. Shortly afterwards, young protesters

change the destiny of the ACTA. The citizen groups organised

demonstrations across European cities and asked their government to stop

the ACTA ratification (Spiegel, 2012). A series of national governments

started to make concessions on the issues of the ACTA. In February 2012,

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the Polish government firstly decided to halt the national ratification1, while

Germany and other six countries also declared to suspend their parliamentary

ratification (Dür & Mateo, 2014; Parks, 2013; BBC, 2012; RT, 2012a; Sofia

News, 2012a; ZDNet, 2012). Meanwhile, the anti-ACTA campaign started to

shift its focus towards the EU and targeted the EP as the weak point (Parks,

2013, p. 8). More than 2.5 million people signed the online petitions for asking

the EP to reject the ACTA.

As the public opposition increased dramatically, the Commission preferred to

delay the legislative process and refer the ACTA to the CJEU. In particular,

the Commission sought legal clarification about whether the ACTA was

‘incompatible—in any way—with freedom of expression and information or

data protection and the right to property in case of intellectual property

(European Commission, 2012a)’. The liberals (ALDE group) in the EP also

wanted legal clarification before they vote on the ACTA (ALDE, 2012a), but

the majority in the INTA committee blocked a recommendation proposal for

the referral on 28th March 2012. For the right wings, referral meant that the EP

can no longer vote on it. For the left wings, it was better to reject the ACTA in

the EP as soon as possible (European Parliament, 2012b). As a result, only

the Commission submitted the request to the CJEU but the legislative process

in the EP still continued. The main divergence between MEPs was the

‘fast/slow’ (speed) aspect of the legislative process of the ACTA at this stage.

Figure 4 shows the distance of the policy positions between the main political

groups on the ‘fast/slow’ dimension.

1 According to a public opinion poll in Poland in 2012, 58% respondents were against ratifying ACTA, 60% respondents were worried about online privacy (CBOS, 2012).

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Figure 4: Distributional line: referral proposal (28th March 2012)

Source: Author’s own estimations

(4) No referral/Referral

Following the strong opposition and highly public salience, the EP greatly

increased its sceptical attitude to the ACTA. Within the centre–right groups,

the MEPs were divided over whether they should continue to support the

ACTA. Some MEPs from France and German argued that the EU needs to

defend IPR rights through international cooperation so that the ACTA would

provide a useful basis to set up the fight against counterfeit products and

ensure an adequate protection of consumers and companies. Most

importantly, the ACTA could protect European jobs and competitiveness.

Nevertheless, many MEPs from the Central Eastern European countries

expressed their concerns about internet freedom and civil rights and were

inclined to vote along with their domestic voters’ preference (European

Parliament, 2012h). At this point, it seemed that the centre–right groups had

difficulties in achieving an internal consensus about the next course of action.

Meanwhile, the centre-left groups and the liberals announced their intention to

reject the ACTA in April 2012 (ALDE, 2012b; Greens Party, 2012; S&D,

2012a). Five committees of the EP had also suggested that the ACTA should

be rejected (European Parliament, 2012c, 2012d, 2012e, 2012f, 2012g).

Later, the centre-right groups decided to postpone the legislative process in

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order to keep the ACTA on the agenda (EPP, 2012). When the plenary

prepared to vote on the ACTA on 4th July 2012, MEP Christofer Fjellner from

the EPP group acted swiftly and asked to refer the ACTA back to the INTA

committee under Rule 175(2) of Rules of Procedure (BBC Democracy Live,

2012). However, the centre-left groups disagreed with the centre-right groups’

delaying tactics (ALDE, 2012c; S&D, 2012b, 2012c) and successfully

managed to block the proposal in the plenary vote. The main divergence

between the MEPs was the ‘no referral/referral’ aspect of the legislative

process of the ACTA at this stage. Figure 5 provides a schematic

representation of the policy positions between the main political groups on the

‘no referral/referral’ dimension.

Figure 5: Distributional line: centre-right group’s proposal (4th July 2012)

Source: Author’s own estimations

(5) For/Against

After the failure of the referral proposal, the centre-right groups instructed their

members to abstain from voting, while the centre-left groups and the liberals

informed their members to vote against the ACTA. Among the political groups,

the S&D group, the second largest group in the EP, achieved a concrete

consensus on rejecting the ACTA (S&D, 2012a, 2012b). The main reason

why the political groups rejected the ACTA was given as follows: ‘The ACTA

bundles together too many different types of IPR enforcement under the same

umbrella which undermines the protection of each other (ALDE, 2012b)’, ‘The

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ACTA points at the right problems but gives the wrong answers (S&D,

2012a)’. Further, as mentioned, many MEPs from the Central and Eastern

European countries declared to vote against the ACTA because ‘it creates an

imbalance between the rights of creators and producers and the rights of

Internet users (European Parliament, 2012h, p. 249)’. As a result, all signs

indicated that the ACTA was less likely to have a simple majority support in

the EP. The plenary finally declined to give its consent to the ACTA by 478

voting against, 165 abstentions and 39 voting in favour (VoteWatch Europe,

2012a). Figure 6 highlights the voting preferences of the political groups on

the ACTA. The main divergence between MEPs was ‘For/Against’ of the

ACTA at this stage. Figure 6 shows a schematic representation of the

distance of the policy positions between the main political groups on the

‘For/Against’ dimension.

Figure 6: Distributional line: consent procedure (4th July 2012)

Source: Author’s own estimations

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4. Voting results

Table 1 shows the outcomes of all five key votes on the ACTA in the EP 7th

(2009-2014). In this section, it focuses on three main roll-call votes. Vote 1

was the vote of a joint motion for resolution, proposed by the centre-left

groups2 on 24th November 2010. Vote 2 was the vote of a motion for referral

of the ACTA back to the committee, proposed by the centre-right groups on

4th July 2012. Vote 3 was the final consent procedure on the ACTA on 4th July

2012.

Table 1: Five key votes on ACTA Time 10th March 2010 24th Nov 2010 24th Nov 2010 4th July 2012 4th July 2012

Rename - Vote 1 - Vote 2 Vote 3

Type RCV RCV EV RCV RCV

Subject Resolution on

concerns of

ACTA’s

transparency

Resolution on

concerns of

ACTA’s impact

Resolution on

supporting ACTA

Refer ACTA

to Committee

Consent

on ACTA

Result Pass Fail Pass Fail Fail

Yes 633 306 331 255 39

No 13 322 294 420 478

Abstain 16 26 11 9 165

Total 662 654 636 684 682

Proposed EPP, S&D, ALDE,

Greens/EFA,

ECR, GUE/NGL

S&D, ALDE,

Greens/EFA,

GUE/NGL

EPP, ECR EPP INTA Committee

rapporteur

Reference

RC-B7-0154/2010

2010/2572(RSP)

RC-B7-0617/2010

B7-0618/2010

P7_TA (2010) 0432

2010/2935(RSP)

PV 04/07/2012-7.10

P7_TA (2012) 0287

2011/0167(NLE)

Note: The following paragraphs will analyse Vote 1, Vote 2 and Vote 3 in details.

Source: European Parliament

2 However, it needs to be clarified that this paper does not include the vote on the centre-right’s proposal because it was an electronic vote rather than a roll call vote (European Parliament, 2010c, p. 9). Therefore, ‘Vote 1’ in this research refers to the roll-call vote of the centre-left’s proposal, although the majority rejected it.

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Table 2: MEP voting behaviour by political group and member states Vote Vote1 Vote 2 Vote 3 Time 24th Nov 2010 4th July 2012 4th July 2012

Subject Resolution on concerns of ACTA’s impact

Refer ACTA to Committee

Consent on ACTA

Political Groups

Y N A P C Y N A P C Y N A P C

GUE/NGL 28 1 1 Y 90 0 30 0 N 100 0 30 0 N 100 Greens/EFA 52 0 2 Y 94.44 0 56 0 N 100 0 57 0 N 100

S&D 150 13 9 Y 80.81 1 171 3 N 96.57 1 167 6 N 93.97 ALDE 61 12 5 Y 67.31 15 60 1 N 68.42 2 65 12 N 73.42 EPP 3 237 6 N 94.51 197 40 5 Y 72.11 33 95 109 A 18.99 ECR 1 49 0 N 97 35 12 0 Y 61.7 0 12 35 A 61.7 EFD 3 3 0 - 25 6 27 0 N 72.73 3 27 3 N 72.73 NI 8 7 3 - - 1 24 0 - - 0 25 0 - -

Total 306 322 26 N 78.44 255 420 9 N 81.65 39 478 165 N 74.40

Member States

Y N A P C Y N A P C Y N A P C

Bulgaria 9 6 0 - 40 3 13 0 D 71.88 0 16 0 D 100 Cyprus 4 1 1 - 50 1 5 0 D 75 0 6 0 D 100 Estonia 4 1 0 - 70 1 5 0 D 75 0 6 0 D 100 Hungary 0 17 2 - 84.21 12 7 0 - 44.74 0 18 0 - 100

Malta 3 2 0 - 40 2 4 0 - 50 0 6 0 - 100 Poland 7 30 3 - 62.5 0 49 0 D 100 0 49 0 D 100

Netherlands 12 8 0 - 40 3 21 0 D 81.25 0 22 2 D 87.5 Luxembourg 3 3 0 - 25 3 2 0 - 40 0 5 1 - 75

Lithuania 5 4 0 - 33.33 5 5 0 D 25 0 8 2 D 70 Portugal 6 9 7 - 11.36 10 9 1 - 25 1 16 3 - 70 Romania 15 14 2 - 22.58 9 18 0 D 50 0 21 6 D 66.67 Belgium 11 8 2 - 28.57 5 12 1 - 50 0 15 5 - 62.5 Slovenia 4 2 0 - 50 3 4 1 D 25 0 6 2 D 62.5 Sweden 8 7 1 - 25 4 14 1 - 60.53 0 14 5 - 60.53 Greece 10 10 1 - 21.43 8 13 0 - 42.86 1 15 5 - 57.14

Italy 24 31 0 - 34.55 32 33 1 - 25 5 46 14 - 56.15 Austria 9 8 0 - 29.41 6 13 0 D 52.63 0 13 6 D 52.63 Finland 9 3 0 - 62.5 6 7 0 - 30.77 1 8 3 - 50 Ireland 6 4 1 - 31.82 4 7 0 - 45.45 0 7 4 - 45.45

UK 14 41 4 - 54.24 25 38 1 - 39.06 1 39 23 - 42.86 Slovakia 6 6 0 - 25 6 7 0 D 30.77 0 8 5 D 42.31 France 38 27 0 - 37.69 28 41 0 - 39.13 21 41 5 - 41.79

Denmark 8 4 0 - 50 1 10 0 - 86.36 1 7 4 - 37.5 Latvia 4 4 0 - 25 4 4 1 D 16.67 0 4 5 D 33.33 Czech 12 10 0 - 31.82 9 11 0 D 32.5 0 11 9 D 32.5 Spain 24 21 1 - 28.26 16 23 2 - 34.15 0 22 19 - 30.49

Germany 51 41 1 - 32.26 49 45 0 D 28.19 8 49 37 D 28.19 Total 306 322 26 N 38.76 255 420 9 N 47.29 39 478 165 N 63.15

Note: Y= Yes, N= No, A= Abstain, P= Party Group position or Government position, D= Member States announced to delay or suspend the national ratification of the ACTA before the completion of the EP consent procedure, C= cohesion (%)

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Table 2 shows the breakdown of results in the three roll-call votes by political

groups and member states (VoteWatch Europe, 2010, 2012a, 2012b).

Overall, MEPs were more likely to vote with the political groups rather than

national affiliations in all three votes. It suggests that MEPs were more likely

to vote along with European political groups rather than their national

affiliations. For instance, in Vote 1, the average party cohesion was twice the

national affiliation rate.

Figure 7 further shows the centre-left groups were more cohesive than centre-

right groups. In particular, the members of the Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL

groups voted very cohesively. However, the story was quite different in the

EPP group, the voting cohesion of its members was 95% in Vote 1, but the

number decreased dramatically to around 19% in Vote 3.

Figure 7: Cohesion rates of political groups

Source: VoteWatch Europe

Vote 1 was about whether to adopt the centre-left groups’ proposal, which

represented a more sceptical attitude to the ACTA and take a strong position

on the Commission. As a result, the centre-right groups needed to kill the

proposal so that they could propose a pro-ACTA version of the resolution

afterwards (VoteWatch Europe, 2011, p. 8). The voting result indicates that

most MEPs of the EPP, ECR, GUE/NGL and Greens/EFA groups tended to

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vote along the party discipline. Only the S&D, ALDE and EFD groups showed

a relatively low party cohesion. This is partly because the MEPs from the

British Labour party defected from the S&D group, and most MEPs from the

EFD group did not vote. Limited evidences were available on whether MEPs

would choose to vote along with national affiliations, except those MEPs from

Hungary, Estonia and Poland.

Vote 2 was about whether to refer the ACTA back to the committee. The

voting pattern shows that most MEPs were more likely to vote along with party

discipline with 82% of the araverage cohesion rate, even though national

affiliation increased slightly to 47%. It also indicates that all MEPs of the

GUE/NGL and Greens/EFA groups and most MEPs of the S&D group voted

cohesively against the referral proposal. Neverthless, the voting cohesion of

the ALDE, EPP, ECR and EFD groups were relatively lower than 75% in Vote

2. In terms of the cohesion rate of national affiliations, all MEPs from Poland

and many MEPs from Denmark, Netherlands, Cyprus, Estonia and Sweden

voted cohesively against the proposal. Hence, the influence of national

affiliations could not be simply underestimated in Vote 2.

Vote 3 was the final consent vote on the ACTA. Overall, most MEPs either

voted along with the political groups or the national affiliations. The average

cohesion of political groups decreased significantly to 74% while the average

cohesion of national affiliations increased dramatically to 63%. Although the

voting cohesion of the GUE/NGL, Greens/EFA and S&D groups remained

relatviely high, the majority of MEPs from the EPP group chose to defect the

party line, leading its party cohesion rate to merely 18%. Moreover, every MEP from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Malta and Poland voted

cohesively against the ACTA while only some MEPs from France, Germany

and Italy vote in favour of the ACTA. As a result, these descriptive results

suggest that political party disciplines were not so influential in Vote 2 and

Vote 3. Therefore, the next section presents a statistical analysis of MEPs’

voting behaviour in these two roll-call votes and seeks to identify what are the

determinants of MEPs voting behaviour on the ACTA.

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5. Variables

To determine the factors affecting MEPs voting behaviour on the ACTA, this

paper uses logistic regression for capaturing the decisions of each MEP in the

two roll-call votes of the ACTA separately. The dependent variable in Vote 2

is ‘support for the referral of the ACTA’. Hence, a Yes vote for the EPP’s

proposal takes the value 1 and a No vote or an Abstention vote take the value

0. The dependent variable in Vote 3 is ‘reject the ACTA’. Therefore, a No vote

for the final consent procedure takes value 1 and a Yes vote or an Abstention

vote take the value 0.��

�

The article uses five different domains to estimate the main factors influencing

the MEPs’ voting behaviour on the ACTA in each of the two votes. �

(1) MEP level

The first domain MEP level includes two independent variables which

examine how the MEP’s ideological proposition affects the direction in which

they vote on the ACTA. This research applies data from the NOMINATE

scaling method for the MEP’s ideology indices in the first half term of the EP

7th session (all roll call votes between July 2009 and November 2011) (Hix,

2014) 3. Previous studies confirm that, in the EP 5th (1999-2004) and EP 6th

(2004-2009), the first dimension produced by this method is significantly

related to the left-right ideology of MEPs while the second dimension appears

to represent the anti-/pro- European integration (Hix, Noury, & Roland, 2006,

2007; Hix & Noury, 2009). As a result, in NOMINATE 1, it assumes -1 as the

furthest left position on the political spectrum, and 1 as the furthest right. In

the NOMINATE 2, -1 is the most anti-EU position, and 1 is the most pro-EU

position. Therefore, if more right-wing MEPs are in favour of Vote 2, the

NOMINATE 1 variable should be positively related to the propensity of the

MEPs to vote ‘Yes’ in Vote 2. If more pro-EU MEPs are in favour of Vote 2,

the NOMINATE 2 variable should be positively related to the propensity of the

3 I would like to thank Professor Simon Hix for providing his newest data, which includes MEP NOMINATE scores, nationalities, memberships of national parties and memberships of European political groups for 764 MEPs in the EP 7th (between July 2009 and November 2011).

19

MEPs to vote ‘Yes’ in Vote 2. Similarly, if more left-wing MEPs are against

Vote 3, the NOMINATE 2 variable should be negatively related to the

propensity of the MEPs to vote ‘No’ in Vote 3. If more anti-EU MEPs are

against Vote 3, the NOMINATE 2 variable should be negatively related to the

propensity of the MEPs to vote ‘No’ in Vote 3.�

(2) CONSTITUENCY level

The second domain CONSTITUENCY level combines four variables that

examine how the MEP’s constituent preferences influence MEPs’ voting on

the ACTA. In the EP elections, all the member states use the proportional

representative systems (PR) or single transferable voting (STV). The electoral

connection between the voters and MEPs candidates is still weak. Therefore,

‘constituency’ for each MEP is the national party because it has the power to

select which candidates should be nominated on the electoral ballot (Hix &

Noury, 2007). Thus, MEPs are more likely to follow the instructions of the

national party and reflect its policy preferences in order to be re-elected (Hix,

2002, 2004; Hix & Høyland, 2011). As a result, this paper assumes that MEPs

voting on the ACTA were influenced by their national parties’ position on the

ACTA.

To capture the extent to which the national party affects the MEPs’ voting

behaviour on the ACTA, it was first necessary to confirm whether the national

party of an MEP was in government during the votes in the EP (NP

Government July 2012). If an MEP’s national party is in government, the

value was set as 1, otherwise 0. Annex 1 shows a list of the national parties in

government in each EU Member State (Döring & Manow, 2014). Existing

research indicates that the national parties whose ministers’ voted for a part of

EU legislation in the Council are likely to put pressure on their MEPs to

support the legislative in the EP (Hix et al., 2007; Høyland, 2005). According

to the Lisbon Treaty, the Council must act under the unanimity rule and

authorise the signing of the agreements in the case of the ACTA (TFEU

Article 207.4 and 218.2). Consequently, it could assume all national

governments are more likely to have a common position (pro-ACTA) during all

20

votes in the EP 4. Even though some national governments suspended the

national ratification of the ACTA, no governments opposed the Commission’s

decisions in public.

Second, to capture the policy preferences of the national party, this paper

used the Manifesto Project Data 5 (Volkens et al., 2013), which is based on

the quantitative content analysis of the campaign manifestos political parties’

in the democratic countries with the major policy areas. The researchers

phrased party manifestos into quasi-sentences, each a verbal expression of

one political idea or issue and assigned each text unit to one category (Laver,

2014). In this study, three sets of issues were selected: NP Freedom and Human Rights, NP Law and Order, and NP Free Enterprise as the

independent variables. These policy preferences could indicate the national

party’s proposition towards the ACTA or determine the MEPs’ voting

behaviour.

For the first variable, NP Freedom and Human Rights, which is positively

correlated to the frequency of ‘personal freedom and civil rights’ or ‘freedom of

speech’ in the manifestos. For the MEPs from a national party that focuses on

the value of civil liberties, the scores would be higher. The hypothesis is that

the more pro-civil rights the national parties are, the less likely will they be of

supporting the ACTA.

The second variable is the national party’s position on actions against crime –

NP Law and Order. The data represents the extent of the manifestos’

wording with mentions of enforcement of all laws, support resource for police

or tougher attitudes in courts. MEPs form a national party highly emphasising

the importance of law in the manifestos, would yield high scores. These MEPs

tend to wait for the legal clarification of the ACTA and are more likely to vote

in favour of the referral of ACTA.

4 Council has published some relevant minutes of the Council meetings on issues of the ACTA but these recent documents have blocked all the names of member states or negotiating countries as ‘classified’. 5 The version of ‘Manifesto Project Data 2013b’ provides with the manifestos data in most EU countries between 2009 and 2013 but in few EU countries, the manifestos data are only available between 2001 and 2005. Consequently, this paper adopts the most recent data in each country.

21

NP Free Enterprise is the third variable which indicates the level of national

parties’ attitude towards capitalism. MEPs from a national party that prefer to

mention private property rights would yield higher scores. It expects that these

MEPs tend to support the international cooperation on the protection of IPR

and are more likely to keep the ACTA on the agenda or vote for the ACTA.

(3) MS ECONOMIC level

The third term, MS ECONOMIC level combines four variables that elucidate

how the variations in member states’ economic interests influence the MEPs’

voting behaviour on the ACTA. The first variable, MS Innovation Turnover, is

the ratio of the turnover from products new to the enterprise and new to the

market as a percentage of total turnover, as measured by the Eurostat

(Eurostat, 2010). It is based on the Community innovation survey and covers

at least all enterprises with 10 or more employees. According to the definition

provided by Eurostat (2010), an innovation is ‘a new or significantly improved

product (good or service) introduced to the market or the introduction within

an enterprise of a new or significantly improved process’. Consequently, this

variable shows the level of economic interest on innovation in each member

state. The hypothesis is that MEPs from a member state whose economy is

highly dependent on innovation are more likely to prefer a strict law

enforcement of IPR in the ACTA.

The second variable, MS Downloading, the total percentage of individuals

using the Internet for playing or downloading games, images, films or music in

each member states, as reported by Eurostat (Eurostat, 2012a). This variable

reflects the economic interest in the Internet over a commercial scale, in each

member state. The enforcement of the ACTA would impose new or greater

economic costs for these countries. For instance, the Internet service

providers will have to share the burden of extra costs on combating online

piracy once the ACTA comes into force. The hypothesis is that MEPs from a

member state with more Interent downloading users are more likely to vote

against the ACTA.

22

The third variable, MS Export Share, is the percentage of extra-EU

international trade share among member states in 2011 (Eurostat, 2011). This

would allow us to capture the economic interests of the international trade in

each member states. MEPs from a country with a high number of extra-EU

export trade shares are expected to be in favour of the ACTA.

The fourth variable is general trade-related index of counterfeiting and piracy

of economies (MS GTRIC-e), as reported by the OECD in 2009 6 . It

represents the relative intensity with which a given economy exports

counterfeit and pirated products. According to the definition of the OECD

report (2009), the term ‘relative’ means that ‘for a given economy GTRIC-e

indicates the average intensity of its counterfeit exports, taking the economy

with the highest share of exports of counterfeit and pirated products as a

benchmark (OECD, 2009)’. Hence, MEPs from a member state with high

score of GTRIC-e are expected to vote against the ACTA.

(4) MS POLITICAL level

MS POLITICAL level is the fourth domain considered and it combines three

variables that reflect the differences in political interests of the member states’

that affect MEPs’ voting behaviour on the ACTA. The first variable is Central

and Eastern European (MS CEE) countries. Given the fact that the different

cultural and legal traditions between the CEE and the remaining EU member

states, MEPs from the CEE are expected to be less likely to support a strict

system of IPR protection. Meanwhile, due to the political history of the state

surveillance, the citizens in the Central and Eastern European countries are

generally cautious about the potential implications of Internet censorship on

the enforcement of the ACTA. Moreover, the anti-ACTA campaign had many

intense supporters in the countries of CEE in 2012 (Dür & Mateo, 2014;

Parks, 2013). Therefore, it is assumed that the MEPs from CEE countries are

more likely to vote against the ACTA.

6 However, three EU member states, Ireland, Malta and Sweden, were not included in the OECD 2009 report.

23

The second variable is MS Google Trends. The Google Trends provides a

good indication of the salience level of specific issues for Internet users within

a specific time period. To capture the level of salience of the ACTA in each

member state, it uses the Google search database to understand the extent of

public attention on the issues of the ACTA in each member state 7. The paper

calculates the percentage of all searches interest for the key term ‘Anti-

Counterfeiting Trade Agreement’ during November 2011 and July 2012 in the

EU member states (Google, 2014), the percentages range from 0 to 100, with

0 indicating the lowest level of salience and 100 indicating the highest level of

public attention. The hypothesis is that MEPs from a country with high level of

salience on the issue of the ACTA are more likely to vote against the ACTA.

The third variable, MS Open list or STV, is the type of electoral system that

member states use in 2014 EP election (EPRS, 2013). As discussed, all the

member states use PR or STV in the EP elections. However, among them,

the majority of the countries use a preferential system such as open list or

STV, so that voters can choose between candidates from the same party as

well as between parties. Others use the closed list system, voters can only

choose between pre-ordered lists of candidates from each of the national

parties (Hix & Høyland, 2013, p. 184). The existing research show the MEPs

elected under open-list electoral systems tend to be more independent from

their national parties and more responsive to the instructions from their

European political groups (Hix, 2004). Therefore, this paper expects to

evaluate whether these preferential systems affect the MEPs’ voting

behaviour on the ACTA.

(5) EPG level

The final domain, EPG level, indicates a set of dummy variables for the

European political groups in the Seventh European Parliament (VoteWatch

Europe, 2009). It takes seven political groups as variables in the analysis in

order to examine which were more hostile or favourable to the ACTA in all the

three votes. The baseline group for these variables are ‘MEPs who sit as non-

7 Dür & Mateo first reported that “the geographic origin of the searches further corroborates the link to the anti-ACTA campaign, as these were the countries with the strongest campaigns (Dür & Mateo, 2014, p. 1209) “.

24

attached members’ (Hix & Noury, 2007, p. 196). This variable also translates

into the political groups’ position from the left to right, ordering of these groups

is as follows: GUE/NGL, Greens/EFA, S&D, ALDE, EPP, ECR and EFD.

Table 3: Determinants of MEP Voting on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

The$EPP$group's$request$for$referral$to$committee$(Vote%2) The$consent$procedure$of$ACTA$(Vote%3)(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16)

NOMINATE%1 2.645*** 1.953*** 2.458*** 2.800*** H0.798 H2.005*** H1.559*** H1.889*** H2.286*** 0.525

(0.403) (0.530) (0.428) (0.665) (0.901) (0.357) (0.461) (0.379) (0.585) (1.404)

NOMINATE%2 1.381*** 1.437*** 1.701*** 1.754*** 1.034 H0.745*** H0.602*** H0.894*** H0.489*** 3.478**

(0.152) (0.181) (0.193) (0.230) (1.480) (0.140) (0.157) (0.171) (0.184) (1.392)

NP%Government%July%2012 1.234*** 1.596*** 1.205*** 1.831*** 0.172 H1.199*** H1.466*** H1.125*** H1.338*** H0.105

(0.191) (0.241) (0.214) (0.283) (0.490) (0.192) (0.240) (0.200) (0.250) (0.344)

NP%Freedom%Human%Rights H0.0495 H0.138*** H0.00908 H0.138*** 0.0343 0.0107 0.141** 0.00671 0.143*** H0.0513

(0.0345) (0.0498) (0.0388) (0.0482) (0.0719) (0.0335) (0.0550) (0.0362) (0.0473) (0.0711)

NP%Law%Order 0.112*** 0.0830** 0.117*** 0.0499 0.0125 H0.0506* H0.0300 H0.0305 0.0141 0.140**

(0.0269) (0.0323) (0.0302) (0.0398) (0.0535) (0.0262) (0.0312) (0.0294) (0.0373) (0.0639)

NP%Free%Enterprise 0.636*** 0.654*** 0.557*** 0.511*** 0.263* H0.378*** H0.428*** H0.312*** H0.295*** H0.164

(0.0839) (0.0926) (0.0864) (0.0950) (0.143) (0.0716) (0.0792) (0.0727) (0.0819) (0.125)

MS%Innovation%Turnover 0.0160 0.0171 H0.0243 H0.0378 0.112** H0.0208 H0.0208 H0.0105 H0.0234 H0.145***

(0.0200) (0.0245) (0.0247) (0.0297) (0.0481) (0.0214) (0.0253) (0.0248) (0.0286) (0.0394)

MS%Downloadng H0.0208* H0.0499*** 0.00877 H0.0245 0.0162 0.0180 0.0490*** H0.00216 0.0287* 0.00403

(0.0115) (0.0148) (0.0138) (0.0170) (0.0299) (0.0131) (0.0159) (0.0142) (0.0165) (0.0217)

MS%Export%Share 0.0565*** 0.0783*** 0.0757*** 0.109*** 0.0695 H0.0457*** H0.0654*** H0.0511*** H0.0696*** H0.0444*

(0.0149) (0.0217) (0.0173) (0.0249) (0.0428) (0.0154) (0.0205) (0.0163) (0.0203) (0.0254)

MS%GTRICKe H0.0607 0.0289 H0.0734 0.0954 0.360 1.401* 1.546 1.291 1.129 2.029*

(0.532) (0.608) (0.629) (0.739) (1.412) (0.821) (0.948) (0.843) (0.926) (1.127)

MS%CEE 0.798** 0.607 1.207*** 1.332*** 0.219 H0.0623 0.341 H0.129 0.109 0.575

(0.326) (0.449) (0.384) (0.513) (0.793) (0.357) (0.452) (0.374) (0.458) (0.566)

MS%Google%Trends H0.0327*** H0.0556*** H0.0409*** H0.0621*** H0.0475*** 0.0223*** 0.0347*** 0.0223*** 0.0316*** 0.0296***

(0.00701) (0.0127) (0.00732) (0.0115) (0.0124) (0.00725) (0.0111) (0.00707) (0.00955) (0.0101)

MS%Open%List%or%STV H0.402* H0.973*** H0.441* H0.775*** H1.476*** 0.262 0.448* 0.265 0.390 0.618*

(0.207) (0.281) (0.240) (0.297) (0.535) (0.222) (0.267) (0.237) (0.269) (0.351)

GUE/NGL H H

Greens/EFA H H

S&D H3.519** H1.492

(1.628) (1.738)

ALDE 0.907 H0.388

(1.021) (1.397)

EPP 4.049** H7.852***

(1.806) (2.253)

ECR 6.261*** H3.894***

(1.605) (1.463)

EFD 0.766 H0.269

(1.380) (1.391)

Constant H0.534*** H2.197*** 0.156 H0.0228 H2.461*** H0.594 H0.486 H4.197** 0.813*** 2.115*** 0.146 H0.0684 1.943*** 0.809 0.317 4.683***

(0.117) (0.224) (0.591) (0.734) (0.314) (0.689) (0.838) (1.731) (0.109) (0.220) (0.691) (0.831) (0.277) (0.744) (0.866) (1.694)

Pseudo%R2 0.1929 0.1909 0.0722 0.2967 0.3138 0.2791 0.4271 0.7143 0.0885 0.1199 0.0713 0.2278 0.1641 0.1637 0.265 0.4842

Observations 623 609 606 584 597 596 574 511 630 614 612 588 602 602 578 514

Note:$Dependent$variable:$'Yes'$in$Vote$2$and$'No'$in$Vote$3.

Method:$logistic$regression

Standard$errors$in$parentheses$$***$p<0.01,$**$p<0.05,$*$p<0.1

GUE/NGL$and$Greens/EFA$are$excluded$from$model$8$because$all$members$of$GUE/NGL$and$Greens/EFA$vote$against$the$referral.

GUE/NGL$and$Greens/EFA$are$excluded$from$model$16$because$all$members$of$GUE/NGL$and$Greens/EFA$vote$against$the$ACTA.

25

26

6. Results of statistical analysis

Table 3 shows the results of the statistical analysis for the determinants of the

MEPs’ voting behaviour on Vote 2 and Vote 3. The main findings show that

MEPs’ ideological preferences and political parties, rather than the national

economic factors, are better explanations for the MEPs’ decision on the

ACTA. Most importantly, it also reveals that the influence of national political

factors is significant. MEPs from a country whose citizens show much interest

in the key words of “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement”, as per Google

searches, are more likely to vote against both the referral request and reject

the ACTA in the final consent procedure. The findings consequently support

the argument that MEPs’ voting behaviour on the ACTA is primarily driven by

the level of issue salience on the Internet in each member state.

(1) Vote 2

In Vote 2, the vote was about the referral of ACTA back to the committee in

the EP. The results show that national political factors, national party

preferences and MEPs’ ideological preferences are the important factors of

MEPs’ voting behaviour on Vote 2.

First, national political interests are more influential than national economic

interests. MS Google Trends and MS Open List or STV are significant in all

models in Vote 2. This suggests that MEPs are more likely to oppose the

referral vote and decide to vote on the ACTA straightaway if they are from a

member state which has a high percentage of Internet search interest for the

term “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” on the Google website during

November 2011 and July 2012. The interesting findings suggest that the level

of issue salience of the ACTA on the Internet has a significant influence on

MEPs’ voting behaviour in the EP. Furthermore, MEPs from a member state

which uses an open list or STV electoral system in the forthcoming EP 2014

election are more likely to vote against the delaying request. The evidence

confirms that MEPs are more sensitive to public opinion when the electoral

connection is strong between the voters and MEP candidates. MEPs who will

run their campaign in an open list or STV system are more likely to regard the

27

ACTA as a political question rather than a legal one. Because these MEPs

might worry that voters with strong hostile views of the ACTA could use the

ballots to punish them directly. In contrast, at the level of national economic

interests, MS Export Share is the only variable consistently significant

(except when European political groups dummy variables are included) while

other national economic factors are not significant across the models.

�

Second, national party preferences are also significant factors. NP Free

Enterprise is consistently significant across all models. It means that national

parties attitudes towards free enterprise capitalism and private property rights

are significant predictors of MEP voting on the referral request. Moreover, the

results also show that MEPs from a national party that is in government on 4th

July 2012 are more likely to vote in favour of the referral request while MEPs

from a national party in opposition tend to vote agaisnt it. As mentioned,

delaying the EP’s consent vote is a modest option for both the Council and

the Commission. Although some governments suspended the national

ratification of the ACTA, no government in the Council ever declined to

authorise the Commission’s mandate on the ACTA negotiations. The

government officials could ask their MEPs to follow the national parties’ best

interests. Therefore, it is reasonable that these MEPs from national parties in

the government are more in favour of keeping the ACTA on the agenda.

Third, MEPs’ ideological preferences (NOMINATE 1 and NOMINATE 2) are

the important determinants, except when European political groups dummy

variables are included. The results show that the right-wing MEPs are much

more in favour of the referral request, while the left-wing MEPs are more likely

to vote against it. In addition, pro-EU MEPs tend to support the referral

request but anti-EU MEPs tend to oppose it. Also, the effects of European

political groups are significant. MEPs from the EPP and ECR groups are more

likely to vote in favour of the referral request while MEPs from the S&D group

are more likely to vote against it. The magnitude of this effect is large and the

total explanatory power of the models (as measured by the pseudo R-

squareds) increases dramatically with the addition of these dummy variables.

28

(2) Vote 3

In Vote 3, the vote was about whether to give consent to the ACTA in the final

stage. The results show that national political and economic factors, national

party preferences and MEPs’ ideological preferences are the vital factors of

MEPs’ voting behaviour on Vote 3.

First, the MS Google Trends variable was consistently significant in all

models. The results reveals that MEPs from a country whose citizens show

much interest in the term of “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” on the

Google website during November 2011 and July 2012 are more likely to vote

against the ACTA. This is because the ACTA became a salient issue among

the Internet users and it was inevitable for both national politicians and

European legislators to notice the issue and side with/against the ACTA. The

fascinating findings once confirm that the level of issue salience of the ACTA

on the Internet in each member state was the strongest determinant of MEPs’

voting behaviour on the ACTA.

Second, some national economic factors are significant. MS Export Share is

the only variable consistently significant across all models. It indicates that

MEPs from a country with high percentage of export shares outside the EU

are more likely to vote either in favour of the ACTA or abstention in the

consent procedure. In other words, these MEPs tend not to reject the ACTA at

the final stage. Also, MS Innovation Turnover variable is significant once

controlling the European political groups dummy varables. MEPs are less

likely to vote against the ACTA if they are from a country with large economic

benefits of innovative industry. However, most national economic variables

are not consistently significant in all models.

Third, NOMINATE 1, NP Government July 2012 and NP Free Enterprise

variables are consistently significant, except when European political groups

dummy variables are included. It means that left-wing MEPs are more likely to

vote against the ACTA, while the right-wing MEPs are less likely to reject the

ACTA. The results also confirm that MEPs from a national party in

government or favouring free enterprise policies are less likely to reject the

29

ACTA. Nevertheless, these three variables cannot explain the variations

within the European political groups.

7. Conclusion

The Lisbon Treaty has significantly enhanced the EP’s formal role in the trade

policy-making process by allowing the EP to approve or reject all trade and

investment agreements with third countries (Kleimann, 2011). However, there

are few investigations providing a full story of MEP voting behaviour in the

international trade agreements (Kang, 2013). Therefore, it is very interesting

to investigate MEPs’ voting behaviour on the case of ACTA since it is the first

EU international trade agreement ever to be rejected by the EP.

A quantitative investigation on EU legislative politics revealed that the political

parties and left–right ideology are the main determinants of MEPs’ voting

behaviour (Hix, 2001; Hix, Noury, & Roland, 2006, 2007; Hix & Noury, 2009;

Hix & Høyland, 2013). It suggests that MEPs are more likely to vote along the

party discipline of European political groups rather than national affiliations.

Moreover, interparty coalitions were formed mainly around the left–right

dimension. The ideological distance between political groups is the main

determinant of coalition preferences (Hix & Noury, 2009). In short, the classic

left–right dimension of democratic politics is the strongest predictor of policy-

outcomes in the EP.

However, according to the roll-call votes (Vote 2 and Vote 3) on the ACTA,

the average voting cohesion of political groups were extremely low while the

average voting cohesion of national affiliations increased dramatically. It

seems the existing theory of EU legislative politics has limitations in explaining

why the MEPs decided to reject the ACTA at the final stage. Using logitistic

egression, this research finds that MEPs’ ideological preferences and political

parties, rather than the national economic factors, are better explanations for

the MEPs’ voting behaviour on the ACTA. Most importantly, the statistical

results also points out that MEPs’ decisions on the ACTA is primarily driven

by the level of issue salience on the Internet (as per Google searches) in each

member state. MEPs from a country whose citizens show much interest in the

30

key words of “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement”, as per Google searches,

are more likely to vote against both the referral request and the ACTA in the

final consent procedure. It suggests that the MEPs voting behaviour on the

ACTA cannot simply be explained by the classic left–right party politics. In this

regard, the ACTA is a very unique case that needs to be investigated.

31

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European Parliament. (2012e, June 4). Opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs (4.6.2012) for the Committee on International Trade on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, Australia, Canada, the Republic of Korea, the United States of America, Japan, the Kingdom of Morocco, the United Mexican States, New Zealand, the Republic of Singapore and the Swiss Confederation (12195/2011 – C7-0027/2012 – 2011/0167(NLE)). Retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&mode=XML&reference=A7-2012-204&language=EN#title5

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Annex 1: National Parties in government at the time of the votes

Time 10th March 2010 24th Nov 2010 4th July 2012 Vote - Vote 1 Vote 2 and Vote 3 Variable - - NP Government July 2012 Austria 1.Sozialdemokratische Partied Österreichs

2.Österreichische Volkspartei Belgium 1. Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams

2. Mouvement Réformateur 3. Parti Socialiste 4. Open Vlaamse Liberals and Democrats 5. Centre démocrate humaniste

1. Parti Socialiste 2. Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams 3. Socialistische Partij Anders 4. Open Vlaamse Liberals and Democrats 5. Mouvement Réformateur 6. Centre démocrate humaniste

Bulgaria 1. Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria Cyprus 1. Anorthotikó Kómma Ergazómenou Laoú Czech Republic

1. Česká strana sociálně demokratická 2. Občanská demokratická strana 3. Strana zelených

1. Občanská demokratická strana 2. Tradice Odpovědnost Prosperita 3. Věci veřejné

Denmark 1. Venstre, Danmarks Liberale Parti 2. Det Konservative Folkeparti

1. Socialdemokraterne or Socialdemokratiet 2. Det Radikale Venstre 3. Socialistisk Folkeparti

Estonia 1. Eesti Reformierakond 2. Isamaa ja Res Publica Liit 3. Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond

1. Eesti Reformierakond 2. Isamaa ja Res Publica Liit

Finland 1. Suomen Keskusta 2. Kansallinen Kokoomus r.p. 3. Vihreä liitto 4. Suomen ruotsalainen kansanpuolue

1. Kansallinen Kokoomus r.p. 2. Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue 3. Vasemmistoliitto 4. Vihreä liitto 5. Suomen ruotsalainen kansanpuolue 6. Kristillisdemokraatit

France 1. Union pour un mouvement populaire 1. Parti Socialiste Germany 1. Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands

2. Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern 3. Freie Demokratische Partei

Greece 1. Panhellenic Socialist Movement Non-party caretaker government

Hungary 1. Magyar Szocialista Párt, MSZP

1. Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség 2. Kereszténydemokrata Néppárt

Ireland 1. Fianna Fáil 2. Green Party

1.Fine Gael 2. Labour Party

Italy 1. Il Popolo della Libertà 2. Lega Nord

Non-party caretaker government

Latvia 1. Jaunais laiks 2. Sabiedrība Citai Politikai, SCP 3. Pilsoniskā savienība 4. Zaļo un Zemnieku savienība

1. Vienotība 2. Reformu partija 3. Nacionālā apvienība „Visu Latvijai!

Lithuania 1. Tėvynės sąjunga - Lietuvos krikščionys demokratai, TS-LKD 2. Liberalų Sąjūdis 3. Liberalų ir centro sąjunga

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Luxembourg 1. Parti populaire chrétien social 2. Parti Ouvrier Socialiste Luxembourgeois

Malta 1. Partit Nazzjonalista Netherlands 1. Christen-Democratisch

Appèl 2. Partij van de Arbeid, PvdA 3. ChristenUnie

1. Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie, VVD 2. Christen-Democratisch Appèl 3. Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV

Poland 1. Platforma Obywatelska, PO 2. Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL

Portugal 1. Partido Socialista

1.Partido Social Democrata 2. CDS – Partido Popular

Romania 1. Partidul Democrat-Liberal, PD-L or PDL 2. Romániai Magyar Demokrata Szövetség, RMDSz 3. Uniunea Națională pentru Progresul României, UNPR

1. Partidul Social Democrat 2. Partidul Naţional Liberal 3. Partidul Conservator 4. Uniunea Națională pentru Progresul României

Slovakia 1. Smer–sociálna demokracia, Smer-SD 2. Ľudová strana – Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko, ĽS-HZDS 3. Slovenská národná strana, SNS

1. Slovenská demokratická a kresťanská únia – Demokratická strana, SDKÚ-DS 2.Kresťanskodemokratické hnutie, KDH 3. Sloboda a Solidarita, SaS 4. Most–Híd

1. Smer–sociálna demokracia, Smer-SD

Slovenia 1. Socialni demokrati, SD 2. Zares – socialno-liberalni 3. Demokratična stranka upokojencev Slovenije

1. Slovenska demokratska stranka, SDS 2. Demokratična stranka upokojencev Slovenije 3. Državljanska lista, DL 4. Nova Slovenija – Krščanski demokrati, NSi 5. Slovenska ljudska stranka, SLS

Spain 1. Partido Socialista Obrero Español

1. Partido Popular 2. Unión del Pueblo Navarro

Sweden 1. Moderata samlingspartiet 2. Folkpartiet liberalerna, FP 3. Centerpartiet 4. Kristdemokraterna, KD

United Kingdom

1. Labour Party 1. Conservative Party 2. Liberal Democratic Party

Note: 1. ‘10th March 2010’ is the date when EP 7th adopts a resolution on transparency and state of play of the ACTA, but it does not include in the statistical analysis. 2. Right wing parties mark blue, left wing parties mark orange, others mark black. Source: ParlGov Database (Döring & Manow, 2014)

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Annex 2: Description of Variables

Variables Contents Source Dependent variables

Vote 2

The EPP’s request for referral to committee (4th July 2012) Yes= 1, No= 0, Abstain= missing value

VoteWatch Europe, 2012a, 2012b Vote 3

The consent vote on ACTA (4th July 2012) No= 1, Yes= 0, Abstain= 0

Independent variables

MEP level NOMINATE 1

This dimension is close to the MEP’s left–right ideology. Furthest left= -1, furthest right= 1

EP7th NOMINATE Scores Nov 2011 (Hix, 2014) NOMINATE 2 This dimension is close to the MEP’s anti/pro-EU position.

Furthest anti-EU= -1, furthest pro-EU= 1 CONSTITUENCY level NP Government July 2012

If MEP’s national party was in the government on 4 July 2012, the value is 1, Otherwise 0.

ParlGov Database (Döring & Manow, 2014)

NP Freedom Human Rights

The text coding of campaign manifestos of MEP’s national party. The key policy preferences of this category include the following: Favourable mentions of importance of personal freedom and civil rights; freedom from bureaucratic control; freedom of speech; freedom from coercion in the political and economic spheres; individualism in the manifesto country and in other countries.

Manifesto Project Database Version: 2013b (Volkens et al., 2013)

NP Law and Order The text coding of campaign manifestos of MEP’s national party. The key policy preferences of this category include the following: Enforcement of all laws; actions against crime; support and resources for police; tougher attitudes in courts.

NP Free Enterprise

The text coding of campaign manifestos of MEP’s national party. The key policy preferences of this category include: Favourable mentions of free enterprise capitalism; superiority of individual enterprise over state and control systems; favourable mentions of private property rights, personal enterprise and initiative; need for unhampered individual enterprises.

MS ECONOMIC level MS Innovation turnover Innovation turnover of total turnover in 2010 in MEP’s

country (%). Eurostat, 2010, 2011, 2012

MS Downloading

Individuals using the Internet for playing or downloading games, images, films or music of the MEP’s country in 2012 (%)

MS Export Share Extra-EU trade by Member State in 2011 (%). MS GTRIC-e

General trade-related index of counterfeiting and piracy of economies (GTRIC-e) from 2000 to 2007 in MEP’s country.

OECD, 2009

MS POLITICAL level MS CEE If MEP is from Central and Eastern Europe, the value is 1,

otherwise 0. VoteWatch Europe, 2012a, 2012b

MS Google Trends

Google search interest “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” in the MEP’s country from Nov 2011 to July 2012 (%)

Google, 2014

MS Open list or STV

If MEP’s national electoral system is open list or STV in the EP 2014 election, the value is 1, otherwise 0.

EPRS, 2013

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EPGs level GUE/NGL If an MEP is a member of GUE/NGL, the value is 1,

otherwise 0. VoteWatch Europe, 2012a, 2012b Greens/EFA If an MEP is a member of Greens/EFA, the value is 1,

otherwise 0. S&D If an MEP is a member of S&D, the value is 1, otherwise 0. ALDE If an MEP is a member of ALDE, the value is 1, otherwise 0. EPP If an MEP is a member of EPP, the value is 1, otherwise 0. ECR If an MEP is a member of ECR, the value is 1, otherwise 0. EFD If an MEP is a member of EFD, the value is 1, otherwise 0. NA If an MEP sits as non-attached members, the value is 1,

otherwise 0. Abbreviations:

GUE/NGL: European United Left/Nordic Green Left European Parliamentary Group

Greens/EFA: The Greens/European Free Alliance

S&D: The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats

ALDE: The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe

EPP: The European People's Party

ECR: The European Conservatives and Reformists

EFD: Europe of Freedom and Democracy

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Annex 3: Descriptive Statistics (Vote 2)

Variable Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

Vote 2 574 0.3850174 0.4870239 0 1 NOMINATE 1 574 0.1508484 0.2917051 -1 1 NOMINATE 2 574 0.2034704 0.6933862 -0.998 1

NP Government July 2012 574 0.4094077 0.4921534 0 1 NP Freedom Human Rights 574 2.367064 3.059373 0 18.05556 NP Law Order 574 4.437041 3.619773 0 23.25581

NP Free Enterprise 574 1.251413 1.533424 0 19.5122 MS Innovation Turnover 574 12.61516 4.597358 1 23.4 MS Downloadng 574 34.90767 9.363151 22 58

MS Export Share 574 8.90662 9.208939 0 27.6 MS GTRIC-e 574 0.1855198 0.204303 0.003566 1.540444 MS CEE 574 0.2839721 0.4513168 0 1

MS Google Trends 574 23.5 26.93634 0 100 MS Open List or STV 574 0.456446 0.4985339 0 1 GUE/NGL 574 0.0418118 0.2003336 0 1

Greens/EFA 574 0.0679443 0.2518697 0 1 S&D 574 0.2578397 0.4378269 0 1 ALDE 574 0.1097561 0.3128581 0 1

EPP 574 0.3606272 0.4806013 0 1 ECR 574 0.0853659 0.2796691 0 1 EFD 574 0.0452962 0.2081343 0 1

NA 574 0.0313589 0.1744377 0 1

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Annex 4: Descriptive Statistics (Vote 3)

Variable Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

Vote 3 578 0.7024221 0.4575888 0 1

NOMINATE 1 578 0.1513824 0.2907933 -1 1 NOMINATE 2 578 0.2006436 0.6930809 -0.998 1 NP Government July 2012 578 0.4134948 0.4928866 0 1

NP Freedom Human Rights 578 2.357031 3.056082 0 18.05556 NP Law Order 578 4.426859 3.59893 0 23.25581 NP Free Enterprise 578 1.271129 1.559527 0 19.5122

MS Innovation Turnover 578 12.6192 4.599461 1 23.4 MS Downloadng 578 34.97232 9.380236 22 58 MS Export Share 578 8.846021 9.195278 0 27.6

MS GTRIC-e 578 0.1863302 0.2041502 0.003566 1.540444 MS CEE 578 0.2820069 0.4503664 0 1 MS Google Trends 578 23.391 26.88294 0 100

MS Open List or STV 578 0.4602076 0.4988458 0 1 GUE/NGL 578 0.0415225 0.1996681 0 1 Greens/EFA 578 0.0692042 0.2540208 0 1

S&D 578 0.2595156 0.4387485 0 1 ALDE 578 0.1124567 0.3162012 0 1 EPP 578 0.3564014 0.4793506 0 1

ECR 578 0.0847751 0.278788 0 1 EFD 578 0.0449827 0.2074457 0 1 NA 578 0.0311419 0.1738515 0 1