[ffii] European Parliament JURI Committee votes for restart with massive majority

[Jonas Maebe]

Brussels, 2 February 2005 - The Legal Affairs Committee of the European 
Parliament (JURI) has decided with a large majority to ask the 
Commission for a renewed referral of the software patents directive. 
With only two or three votes against and one abstention, the resolution 
had overwhelming support from the committee, and all-party backing.

  The decision is a powerful statement from MEPs that the current 
Council text, and the logjam of concern it has caused, is simply not a 
sustainable way forward. It is now up to the Commission to submit a 
new, or the same, proposal to the Parliament. Parliament will then hold 
a new first reading, this time under the guidance of Michel Rocard MEP 
as rapporteur.

  The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Charles McCreevy, 
had in the morning assured the JURI Committee that the Council would 
finally adopt its beleaguered Common Position text. He announced that 
"the Luxembourg Presidency has now received written assurances 
concerning the re-instatement of this issue as an A point at a 
forthcoming Council". Given that A points are to be adopted without 
discussion, this left no possibilities for renewed negotiations in the 
Council. Consequently, the Parliament apparently decided that a restart 
was the best solution.

  Michel Rocard MEP gave a very strong speech at the meeting with the 
Commissioner. Apart from noting several "inelegancies" by the 
Commission, such as not taking into account any of the Parliament's 
substantive amendments in its recommendation to the Council, he also 
took issue with the Dutch and German governments ignoring their 
respective parliaments, the Irish Presidency's sponsorship by Microsoft 
and the attempted ratifications of the political (dis)agreement at 
several fishery Council meetings.

  He mentioned that at a meeting with the Polish government, the 
industry players confirmed that the Council text allowed pure software 
patents, and wondered how the Commission could continue claiming the 
reverse. He was also curious about how the Commission's perfectly 
tautological definition of the concept "technical" could help in any 
way to distinguish between what is patentable and what is not. Despite 
his own abstention when voting on the restart later that day, the fact 
that almost everyone else supported it is probably his personal 
achievement.

  The Commissioner made clear that "any agreement will need to strike a 
fair balance between different interests", and that "a constructive 
dialogue between the Council and Parliament will be vital for an 
agreement". He does have the option to deny a new first reading. But 
given the strength of feeling in the Parliament and the concerns of so 
many member states in the Council, the Parliament request looks like 
the best way to achieve a clean way forward for this Directive that 
everyone has been looking for.


Background information:

   * This press release on the web, with comments: 
http://kwiki.ffii.org/Restart050202En
   * Full recording of the JURI Committee's meeting with the 
Commissioner: http://media.ffii.org/juri050202.mp3 (29 MB)
   * Michel Rocard's speech: http://kwiki.ffii.org/RocardJuri050202En 
(already partially translated from French to English)
   * Latest software patent news: http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn