---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 07 Mar 2005 12:02:33 +0100 From: PILCH Hartmut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ffii] Council Presidency "Adopts" Software Patent Agreement
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 three 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 [1]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. More News Coming up at http://wiki.ffii.org/Cons050307En Please stay tuned! Contact Dieter Van Uytvanck dietvu at ffii org, tel. +31 6 275 879 10 Jonas Maebe, jmaebe at ffii org, tel. +32 485 36 96 45 Hartmut Pilch, phm at ffii org, tel. +49 89 18979927 About FFII -- http://www.ffii.org The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit association registered in several European countries, which is dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 500 members, 1,200 companies and 75,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing. _________________________________________________________________ References [1] http://wiki.ffii.org/Cons0412En _______________________________________________ FFII Press Releases. (un)subscribe via http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] for more information. _______________________________________________ asbl-libre mailing list asbl-libre@ael.be http://www.ael.be/mailman/listinfo/asbl-libre ASBL Association Electronique Libre http://www.ael.be/
