swpat to be council A point *again*?

[Henrik Sandklef]

http://wiki.ffii.org/Cons050211En

"According to FFII's sources, Denmark continues to demand postponement
of the planned adoption of the Council's software patent draft. A
Council diplomat meanwhile confirmed that it is not on the Council
agenda at the 17th February. Yesterday the Dutch Parliament passed a
motion that requests the NL Government to ensure that the Commission
will get enough time to answer the EU Parliament. Halfway the preceding
debate, Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade Van Gennip admitted that she
thinks it would be "unwise" if Luxembourg would put the issue on the
agenda next week. It was doubted whether the Dutch Government will act
according to NL Parliament's will this time. This news from Denmark will
make it very easy for the Dutch Government to obey Parliament. Aanother
small memberstate opposes an adoption on February 17th: Denmark. The
FFII is organising a demonstration in support of the national
Parliaments and the EP's Conference of Presidents on 17 February in
Brussels, when the Council intended to adopt its May 2004 text as an
A-item. A press conference will be held at the Marriott Renaissance on
19, Rue du Parnasse, from 13h30 to 14h30."





MJ Ray (mjr at dsl.pipex.com) wrote:
>
> The European Commission holds press briefings around noon CET
> each day. You can watch them on Europe by Satellite via 13 east,
> or listen to mp3 audio online at http://europa.eu.int/comm/ebs/
>
> Yesterday, there was a question on software patents (transcript
> below). In both question and answer, it mentions that the
> Luxembourg presidency will propose it as an A point (= no
> discussion) yet again next week. Should we do anything?
>
> I'm a bit confused. Next AgFish looks like 28 Feb (it's
> another terrible web site). Is it being shoved elsewhere?
> http://ue.eu.int/cms3_applications/applications/meetings/getworkingProgram.asp?lang=en&cmsID=368
>
>
> 4m50s in on ftp://video:videofiles@158.169.50.2/press/audiovisual/mp3/37968.mp3
>
> Simon: You may have answered this last week, but on the software
> patents proposal, you're probably aware that the Luxembourg
> presidency is going to put the bullet of agreement back on
> the table as an A point next week. Does the commission have a
> view on this, given the very strong message that he received
> from the parliament to re-present a proposal, the fact that the
> council seems prepared to persue the original track rather than
> restarting the process as the parliament asked?
>
> Well, Commissioner Charlie McCreevy was with the legal affairs
> committee of the European Parliament last Wednesday, just
> before the vote take place in the committee where the request
> was made that this be put forward to the first reading.  Well,
> the opinion of the commission at this stage, as expressed by
> the Commissioner then as well, is that we keep our options open,
> and that I can repeat that again, that we keep our options open
> because as you just said it will be an A point on the [indistinct]
> council and the official request from the parliament has
> not yet reached the commission because that has to be decided
> by the conference of presidents of the European Parliament.
> So for us, it's now a moment where we keep the options open and
> see how we can move best forwards when we have more information
> on what both the other institutions are going to do with this,
> in this respect.
>
>
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