The European Parliament rapporteur for ACTA, Kader Arif, has resigned just hours after the EU signed the controversial intellectual property treaty.

In a statement (translated here), Arif denounced the process leading up to the ACTA signings as “a masquerade”.

I denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process which has led to the signature of this agreement: failure to address civil society, lack of transparency since the beginning of the negotiations, successive reports of the signature of the text without any explanation, sweeping aside of the views of the European Parliament expressed in several different resolutions.

Mr Arif said that he had come under pressure to rush through the ratification process so as to keep ACTA out of the public eye.

As rapporteur on this matter, I was contronted by unprecedented manoeuvres by the right of the Parliament to impose an accelerated timetable with a goal of passing the agreement quickly before public opinion could be alerted.

The rapporteur closed his statement by expressing the hope that his resignation would lead to greater public awareness of the treaty.

This agreement could have major consequences on the lives of our citizens, and yet it seems that everything is being done to ensure that the European Parliament will have no voice in this chapter. Thus, today, in handing back the report that I have been in charge of, I hope to send a strong signal to alert public opinion to this unacceptable situation. I will not participate in this masquerade.

The consequences of Mr Arif’s resignation are not yet clear. So far, only Poland has seen widespread public opposition to ACTA, with thousands of protesters taking to the streets on Thursday. However, the European Parliament still has the power to reject the treaty at a final vote scheduled for June.