[Fsfe-ie] Our Council rep

[Teresa Hackett]

Hi Ciaran & co,

Mmmm, our Council rep for this issue is the Minister for Trade & Enterprise
(Mr Martin), backed up by civil servants in Dublin (ENTEMP-see their
website) and the Council civil servants in Brussels (COREPER-see below).
Because the vote might be taken at the fisheries meeting, then the present
is the Min for Agriculture (Mrs Hanafin). The civil servants have been
dealing with this issue from the start, it's new for the Minister(s) because
they're new in post.

COREPER is the Brussels secretariat of the Council of the EU (formerly
called the Council of Ministers, name was changed by the Treaty of Nice, I
think). COREPER are the people who organise the meetings and co-ordinate the
work of the Council i.e. very important!

The Irish reps in Enterprise, Trade & Employment at COREPER likely to have
responsibility for this area are First Secretary for Industrial Policy,
Competition (State Aids) Anne Marie O'Connor
(annmarie.oconnor at iveagh.gov.ie) and/or Internal Market/Consumer Affairs,
Edward Feehan (edward.feehan at iveagh.gov.ie). Probably the fisheries people
won't have input (?)because it's not their policy decision, but just in
case, this is Michael O'Dwyer, First Secretary, Common Fisheries Policy,
Forestry and Mining michael.odwyer at iveagh.gov.ie. I also have phone numbers.
Info correct up to six months ago. The letter should also go to the Dublin
based civil servants at ENTEMP.

Ian's recent description of the Council was essentially correct, except
perhaps that it's quite common for items to be voted through as A items, so
the patent directive hasn't been singled out for this procedure. For a
description of the work of the Council, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_European_Union and COREPER
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COREPER.

The Council are the most important decision making body of the EU,
unfortunately they are also the least transparent ;-(

So do I get the free software (I prefer free beer).

Teresa


Our Council rep, not having been involved in the 2003 and 2004 lobbying, is
probably quite unaware of the guts of this issue.  The current letter should
be aimed at (and sent to) him.  The first person that can Name That Rep,
gets free software!