Guys, Some people will have seen this already, but for everyone's benefit: the European Council have just accepted the draft swpat directive and have completed their first reading.
(The restart that the Parliament called for was denied; a number of countries also asked that the A-item be changed to a B-item, that was also denied. More information at http://wiki.ffii.org/Cons050307En ). While I think there will still be a debate about the process the Council have gone through, and whether or not they have actually behaved correctly from a procedural point of view, I would like to discuss future activity anticipating a second reading at the Parliament (which must come soon). I'm not sure what the procedure at second reading will be, but I've been told before that new amendments may be tabled (usually, you can only re-table amendments you tabled at the first reading). We obviously need to go to our MEPs and try to get them to produce a directive even better than the first reading. As well as ensuring they are aware of the harm the directive could cause, I think a worthwhile tactic will be to point out the behaviour of the Council - I think the second reading at the council will be a very different affair to the first. I would to see even more people participate in getting their MEP onside, but I wonder what other activity would be useful? Should we be trying to get more media coverage? Cheers, Alex. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
