Council Presidency Adopts Software Patent Agreement Against Council's Rules

[Dimitris Glezos]

Σήμερα το πρωί, παρ' όλες τις προσπάθειες μας, το Συμβούλιο Υπουργών 
ψήφισε το κείμενο του για τις πατέντες λογισμικού. Το θέμα αρχίζουν να 
καλύπτουν και στα ΜΜΕ σιγά σιγά.

Δυστυχώς, όπως φαίνεται, η Δημοκρατία είναι μια πολύ αμφισβητούμενη 
έννοια σήμερα.

Στη δεύτερη ανάγνωση του σχεδίου, το Ευρωκοινοβούλιο θα δυσκολευτεί πολύ 
να επιμείνει στις αρχικές του θέσεις. Κάτι το οποίο είμαι σίγουρος 
χαροποιεί πολύ τις εταιρίες που ασκούσαν τις πιέσεις στο Συμβούλιο (λέγε 
με Nokia, Microsoft).

Καλή σας μέρα.

Δημήτρης


Από το:
   http://wiki.ffii.org/Cons050307En

Council Presidency Adopts Software Patent Agreement Against Council's Rules

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.
Report

     * Cyprus submitted a written declaration at the start of the 
Council session
     * Poland, Denmark, Portugal and others (not specified) asked for a 
B item (discussion point)
     * The Luxembourg presidency claimed this was not possible due to 
procedural reasons, and that this would have undermined the whole 
process -> it would stay on the list of A-items
     * Luxembourg then gave a long statement regarding how the EP still 
gets a chance in second reading, the importance of avoiding legal 
uncertainty etc.
     * Denmark said it was disappointed about this, but accepted and 
submitted a written declaration
     * Later on, the list of A items was accepted by the Council

Conclusion

     * Luxembourg negated the Council's own Rules of Procedure, which 
state that a B-item (which is at the same time a request to remove an A 
item) can only be rejected by the a majority of the Council, and not 
just by the Presidency.
     * The objecting countries "forgot" to request removal of the A-item 
from the agenda. Rule 3.8 would have given any single country the right 
to have the A-item removed, because the Luxemburg presidency had failed 
to insert it more than 14 days earlier. It is difficult to believe that 
they were not aware of this possibility.
     * This is a very sad day for democracy, and casts a very dark 
shadow over the European Constitution, which will give the Council even 
more power.

Comments

Jonas Maebe, FFII Board Member:

It is absolutely unfathomable what happened today. I cannot see how
the promoters of the European Constitution can still support it with
a straight face. This event shows that something is clearly rotten
in the city of Brussels at the Council building. Why on Earth do we
still have the rules that state that national parliaments should be
taken into account by the Council?

Things would be much more easier if we scrapped all those rules
and simply wrote down "The Council presidency and Commission
can do together whatever they like". There's no need for those pesky
democratically elected parliamentarians to interfere with the smooth
decision making process of the Council, since its only goal appears
to be to please big business and to produce as many texts as the
sausage machine can bear.

This is absolutely disgusting.





-- 
Dimitris Glezos
Jabber ID: glezos at jabber.org, GPG: 0xA5A04C3B
http://dimitris.glezos.com/

"He who gives up functionality for ease of use
loses both and deserves neither." (Anonymous)
-- 
Dimitris Glezos
Jabber ID: glezos at jabber.org, GPG: 0xA5A04C3B
http://dimitris.glezos.com/

"He who gives up functionality for ease of use
loses both and deserves neither." (Anonymous)
--