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It's to fool the masses into thinking they have a say in the government, of course.

I guess my short blurb was misleading. What De Gucht meant was that he will start a new attempt to get ACTA (modified or not) ratified after the European Court decided on the compatibility of ACTA with the EU body of law, whatever the parliament decides now. That's within the law and not very different from what is happening in normal national legislation. OK, normally failed laws are dropped or sneaked in as a hidden addendum to some other legislation. De Gucht chose to be more defiant or maybe ACTA is just too big to ride on the undercard.

To explain the EU setup post-Lisboa would be a little much at this point, but here is a very short version: the commission is roughly the executive branch while the parliament is the legislative branch. To create a law the commission must suggest it and the parliament must confirm it. De Gucht is one of 27 commissioners (1 commissioner per EU member). The commission is assembled by the 1st commisioner, currently Barroso, and confirmed by the parliament. One term is 4 years and the current term ends 2014. Once assembled, only the 1st commisioner can dismss another commissioner. So to get rid if De Gucht pester Barroso. You can contact him over his website: http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/president/index_en.htm

Edited 2012-07-04 17:30 UTC

Yeah, sure, because Barroso the ultra-liberal, ultra-atlantist guy is going to rmemove De Gucht over ACTA ?

He cannot ignore the decision, he still need a positive decision to enact it. However, he can indefinitely resubmit a directive for vote to the parliament. It usually never happen without a significant change to the directive. In this case, he consider that the parliament is misinformed, and that the parliament would change its opinion after the ruling from the European Court of Justice.

Well that is how the EU Democracy works. The Commission is un elected by the people and on the payroll or big corporates. They decide what they want and even if the vote goes against them they either ignore it or demand another vote, and another, and another... Until they get the answer they want, as happened in Ireland.