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From: "Florian Mueller" <florian.mueller@nosoftwarepatents.com>
To: <patents@aful.org>
Subject: EU Commission acted in collusion with Microsoft,says high-profile Austrian MEP
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 09:05:54 +0100
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http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3D420

SOFTWARE PATENTS:
EUROPEAN COMMISSION ACTED IN COLLUSION WITH MICROSOFT,
SAYS HIGH-PROFILE AUSTRIAN MEP DR. MARIA BERGER

"The Commission might end up paying dearly for its rash collusion with
Microsoft" -- "Commission president apparently loves to play high-stakes
poker with the EP" -- "Bill Gates is at the moment making himself ever more
enemies in the EP"

Brussels (03 March 2005).  A high-profile MEP has said that the European
Commission acted in collusion with Microsoft when earlier this week it
declined the European Parliament's request for a restart of the legislative
process concerning the software patent directive.  Dr. Maria Berger, the
leader of the Austrian social democratic delegation in the EP and the
coordinator of the second-largest parliamentary group (PSE) in the Legal
Affairs Committee, said in a press release that "the Commission might end up
paying dearly for its rash collusion with Microsoft".  In her opinion, the
Commission adopted the position of Microsoft founder Bill Gates on the
subject "without further thought".  Gates had visited the Commission and the
EP in February.

Dr. Berger describes the letter of the president of the Commission (Jos=E9
Manuel Barroso) to the president of the EP (Josep Borrell), in which a
restart of the process is declined, as "yet another provocation of the
parliament".  She concludes that Barroso "apparently loves to play
high-stakes poker with the EP", and recalls that he already suffered his
first defeat with that approach last year when he had to withdraw his list
of proposed commissioners because the EP would otherwise have withheld its
approval.  The way she sees the present situation, Barroso may now face
another defeat.  Dr. Berger concludes saying that Bill Gates, who recently
traveled Europe to pressure politicians toward a directive to his liking,
"is at the moment making himself ever more enemies in the EP".

The original German-language press release of Dr. Maria Berger MEP is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.spe.at/berger/3/a.html#pm19

NoSoftwarePatents.com's campaign manager Florian Mueller had previously
expressed his concern that the EU's Internal Market Commissioner Charlie
McCreevy "may be more interested in what is good for Microsoft than for
Europe as a whole".  His worries stem from the fact that Microsoft is
Ireland's largest tax-payer since the company supplies the entire EU out of
its facility in Dublin where it has a "tax haven".  Mueller explained that
"with its tax-haven program for the European subsidiary of U.S.
corporations, once-poor Ireland has within less than two decades become
Europe's wealthiest country by various statistics."

Recently, NoSoftwarePatents.com publicized a detailed text that explains the
economic dependence of Ireland upon Microsoft and similar U.S. corporations:
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3D397

Microsoft's push for EU software patents drew major attention last month
after a leading Danish financial newspaper quoted Microsoft Denmark's chief
lobbyist who said that Bill Gates had threatened the Danish government with
killing 800 jobs unless the EU were to legalize software patents.  The
Danish social democrats responded with a press release that "blackmail shall
not dictate Danish policy".  Microsoft subsequently denied that Gates made
the respective statement but did admit that intellectual property rights and
their connection with the location of jobs were discussed in the respective
meeting.

Background Information, and Call to "Reprimand" Barroso

The leaders of the EP's parliamentary groups had unanimously approved the
request of the EP's Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) for a fresh start on the
controversial subject.  A week later, on 24 February, the plenary of the EP
reinforced this by unanimously "inviting" the Commission to review its
proposal for a software patent directive although there was no more formal
requirement for the plenary to vote on this subject.  On 28 February, the
Commission rejected that request without stating any particular reason.  At
least in recent history, no such restart request had been declined.

Fritz Amann, chairman of an Austrian business organization and leader of a
right-wing Austrian government party in a regional parliament, now called on
Austrian minister of economics Hubert Gorbach (from the same party) "to make
the Council pull the emergency brake and reprimand Barroso".

The EU Council will meet in its Competitiveness Council configuration this
coming Monday (7 March).  National parliaments in such countries as Denmark
and the Netherlands make a last-minute effort to oblige their governments to
demand in the EU Council that the Council's previously agreed-upon (but not
yet formalized) position be renegotiated.  After the Commission's unusual
move, "anything can happen in the Council" according to political sources.

About the NoSoftwarePatents.com Campaign

The NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign was launched on October 20th and is
supported by three IT companies (1&1, Red Hat, and MySQL AB).  The views
expressed by the campaign are those of the campaign manager and not
necessarily those of the aforementioned companies.

Through Web content in 17 languages, the campaign addresses a pan-European
audience.  More information on the campaign is available on its Website.

Contact Information

For further information concerning this announcement or the
NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, please contact:

Florian Mueller
Campaign Manager, NoSoftwarePatents.com
telephone +49 (8151) 651850
press@nosoftwarepatents.com


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