[Fsfe-ie] Competitiveness Council: Councils, Events, Seminars, Conferences

[James Heald]

I don't know what it involves, but there's apparently an "informal 
meeting" of the EU "High Level Group on Competitiveness and Growth",
which will take place in Dublin on 26 January 2004.

The meeting is being prepared by the Working Party on Competitiveness 
and Growth in Brussels on the 19th.
	http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/04/cm00/cm00166.en04.pdf

Unlike the Working Party, which consists of national civil servants, the 
EU's High Level Groups appear to be advisory gatherings of influential 
stakeholders -- top-level representatives from industry, research 
institutes and policy makers.

I couldn't find anything on the detailed membership, or what topics are 
in play.


teresahackett wrote:

> Hallo Adam & list,
> 
> The key dates for the Presidency are:
> 1. 11.3.2004 Political agreement & possible adoption of IPRE directive. 
> 2. 17-18.5.2004 Political agreement on the software patents directive.
> Lobbying prior to these dates essential.
> In between, there are the meetings of the COREPER IP working group (the national level civil servants) who are thrashing out the amendments/compromises to the text. I have heard that 11.3.2004 for agreement on the IPRE directive is ambitious as there is still a lot to be done e.g. there's a tri-partite meeting on 20.1.2004 between the Council, the Commission and the Parliament. Parliament plan to vote on their amendments on 9.2.2004, but this could slip to March.
> 3.14-15.3.2004. Conference on Consumer Confidence in the European online marketplace. I'll find out more about this next week, could be interesting if it includes copyright. Might be a counter event to the conference below.
> 4.21-22.6.2004. Copyright conference, TBC. The Commission organise a big copyright conference every two years (I posted info on this previously). This year, they have no money, so it looked as if it would be cancelled, until an organisaion stepped into the breach. It will be decided over the next few weeks if the conference goes ahead or not. At the best of times, this conference is rightholder oriented, so it would be important that the agenda and participants represent a range of interests and that it doesn't become a cosy European WIPO type event...I'm following it up.
> 
> Teresa
>