Re: [Patents] Council Presidency "Adopts" Software Patent Agreement

[Chris Fox <foxcj@essex.ac.uk>]

I have the same questions about the next steps.  In addition to
finding out the formal procedures for a complaint, it would also be
very useful in the meantime to know if it is worth contacting friendly
MEPs about this (not that there seem to be any for my constituency,
although there is a green MEP in a nearby consistuency who might be
more interested) and whether there is any point in raising this matter
with members of national parliaments.

Best wishes,
     Chris


On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 01:48:30PM +0100, Kristoff Bonne wrote:
> Gegroet,
> Thanks for the info.
> I sposted a simular question in the "europa.union" NG (where there usually 
> are some people who know about the internal workings of the EU). I'm 
> interested to see what come up overthere.
> The question now is:
> - who at the EP has to take up this task of "looking if it is indeed a 
> common position"?
> - Is there something we can do? (AFAIK, every EU citizen has the right to 
> start a case at the EU court if she thinks that her rights are violated by 
> a descision of the EU). (the question here is "as the descision still has 
> to go to the parliament for second reading; can we speak of a "EU 
> descision" or not?)
> Cheerio! Kr. Bonne.
> Magosányi Árpád schreef:
> Hi! I would say that it is Court and Ombudsman time. The EP's own 
> procedural rules say that when a common position is received, they should 
> look whether it is "indeed a Common Position". Neither if this "indeed" 
> refers to substance (member states support it with the needed majority), 
> nor if procedure (it is accepted according to the rules), it is not a 
> common position. So the EP just can not consider second reading until the 
> matter is set straight in the Council. It is a severe violation of rules, 
> and a serious disregard of democracy. It is not just have to be corrected, 
> but the responsible ones should be punished. A levelez?m azt hiszi, hogy 
> Kristoff Bonne a következ?eket írta:
> Gegroet, I just asked the same question in be-parl-l, but I'll ask it here 
> too. Jonas Maebe schreef:
> Council Presidency "Adopts" Software Patent Agreement
> 7 March 2005 -- The Council Presidency today declared the software 
> agreement of 18 May 2004 to have been adopted, in violation of the 
> procedural rules and in spite of the evident lack of a qualified majority 
> of member states and the requests of several states to reopen negotiations.
> (...) What is the next step? Fight the descision in the Court of the EU (as 
> you speak of "in violation to procedureal rules") or directly to the EP? 
> Cheerio! Kr. Bonne.



-- 
Dr Chris Fox  <foxcj@essex.ac.uk>             Tel: +44 (0)1206 87 2576
Reader in Computer Science                    Fax: +44 (0)870 054 7770  
University of Essex                           Web:  FoxEarth.org/chris
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