Brussels, 16/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - Responding to the wave of protest against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) (see EUROPE 10550 and 10551), the European Publishers Council (EPC) wrote to the European Parliament, the European Commission and member states on 10 February to express its support for the multilateral agreement, denouncing what it calls “coordinated attacks on democratic institutions”. Publishers call for “calm and reasoned assessment” of the facts, rather than yielding to the pressure from a campaign of “hysterical misinformation”. Were ACTA not to be ratified, copyright protection would be seriously compromised across Europe from the moment the Commission carries out a review of the European directive, the EPC says. The organisation is highly critical of the intense lobbying by anti-copyright activists and regrets the tensions among the political groups in the European Parliament, which jeopardise ratification and which culminated in the resignation of French Socialist Kader Arif as rapporteur on the agreement. Parliament will hold its first debate on ACTA on 29 February. (IL/transl.rt)