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On Tuesday, Bulgaria followed some of its European neighbors, including Germany and Poland, in halting approval of the controversial intellectual property treaty.
Bulgaria will "practically stop its participation" until it sees a clear and unified European stance on the treaty, according to Traicho Traikov, the Bulgarian economy and energy minister.
"I'm a pessimist when it comes to regulating an industry, which hasn't adapted to the digital age, through sanctions rather than market means," Traikov told the press, according to Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, ACTA also stalled in the Dutch parliament. Lawmakers in Holland want time to examine the treaty's potential effects on Internet privacy before moving forward with ratification, reported Radio Netherlands Worldwide.
The decisions by Bulgaria and the Netherlands come after anti-ACTA protests spread across Europe over the weekend. Thousands of people in nearly 200 cities took to the streets to protest the treaty.
ACTA was written by the U.S. and Japan in 2006 to provide countries with a new way to cooperate on counterfeiting and intellectual property investigations.
However, opponents say the treaty was negotiated largely in secret and could have disastrous consequences for free speech and an open, international Internet. ACTA has also been criticized for bypassing existing international trade groups, such as the World Trade Organization.
Eight countries have signed ACTA, but none have ratified it. Six countries will need to ratify the treaty for it to activate.
They did sign that shameful thing right away and in secret. And they call their rule democratic? Come on!!! It was a great pleasure for me to see how Mr. Traikov and the others signed it while thinking that it's probably going to spread and work out, but were left completely alone and had to admit the truth of making a BIG mistake on TV. Actually they have no say. The part of the PTB that makes and takes the decisions for the EU politics has the last word on whether the ACTA gets accepted in Europe or not. That's going to be decided this summer.