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Euro Patent Restart Demand Repeated by Parliament
sebFlyte writes "ZDNet UK is reporting that the European Parliament's Conference of Presidents has ratified and repeated the demands of the Parliament for the computer-implemented inventions directive to be sent back to the drawing board, even though the Commission has refused to re-start it after previous demands. From the article: "It is not certain that the Commission will comply with the request of the Parliament, nor that it will use the opportunity to draft a good text ... The new Commission is not obliged to follow the Parliament's request and they might still try to keep all options open and ask the Council to adopt the agreement of last May without a new vote, so as to gain even more options for themselves."
no because the GPL'ed software is copyrighted not patented. Not the same thing.
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
It's like the thing was designed *by*, bureucrats *for* bureaucrats
Well, and I don't mean this in a bad-way, that's pretty much how the EU was set-up - or, more accurately, that's how the fore-runner(s) of the EU were set-up. Six European nations decided to have a coal and steel agreement. One thing led to another, over a long period, and with other nations joining at semi-regular intervals. The decisions were taken by career politicians and bureaucrats. It's comparatively recent that we've even had a parliament, and still more recent that we've actually been permitted to elect the members of said parliament.
Re: EU-civics-101. I'll second that. We - even those of us in Europe - desperately need to know how the hell our continent is run.
This is where the serious fun begins.
Nobody wanted this in the first place - except patent lawyers, patent offices and a few large software companies.
Before the directive was proposed by the European Commission, software patents were rejected twice by governments at international diplomat conferences on the change of the European Patent Convention.
Before the directive was proposed the European Commission held a public hearing. 91% of those responding were against software patents. 47% of the rest were patent lawyers and patent offices.
When the European Commission proposed the directive they sent out a press release saying the directive was to make software less patentable (liars!).
The only elected institution in EU is the European Parliament. Here the proposed directive was amended to not allowing unlimited patentability of all software and business metods.
Later the European Counsil amended the directive again, undoing most of the amendments the the Parliament did.
And now the European Commission and the Counsil (both non-elected, but appointed) are pressing to go through with the directive, completely ignoring the rights of the European Parliament.
Searching a bit gave me the following link:
The EUROPA site which I found this handy-dandy flowchart on! With that many steps, no wonder it's confusing!
As an ignorant American, I found this description of the various EU institutions very helpful. Interesting to note that the Parliament can dismiss the Commission if it desires to do so, and it would be interesting to see this happen, or at least have the threat of it issued to enforce Parliament's request/demand.
The EU explains itself:
http://europa.eu.int/institutions/index_en.htm
Take a look at the dropdown box in the upper right side of your browser window for different languages.
IIRC, the Parliament can dissolve the Council (or Commission?) with a vote of no confidence. They obviously wouldn't do that just on a whim, but they might if the other bodies ignore repeated demands from different portions of the Parliament.
This is a bit like the US legislature. They can pass laws, but the Justice Department can fail to enforce them (or the FCC can ignore them, etc.). If the Executive Branch department fails to respond, they can complain to the President, who can fire people. If the President fails to do anything, they can impeach him. This is, in fact, what happened to Andrew Johnson (backwards; he fired an executive for doing what Congress wanted), although he was acquitted by one vote.
So this is another step with which the Parliament can try to exert influence on the other branches without actually going all the way and using their actual power, which would be enormously disruptive to everything.
Note that the Parliament can also reject the directive on the second reading, but it's difficult and depends on enough MEPs actually showing up that day; if Parliament complains enough beforehand, the Commission is more likely to think that enough MEPs will show up to the vote to kill it, and the less interested they are in pushing the Council's text through (the Commission's mandate is to get some directive passed on software patents, because the current situation is broken, and their job is to get broken situations resolved in some way or other). If it's going to get killed in the second reading, they would rather save face and restart the process; if it's not going to get killed in the second reading, they want to get it done.
Does the EU even *have* a government?
No, At least not a democratic one.
It's like the thing was designed *by*, bureucrats *for* bureaucrats
That's essentially true.
Also, there's the parliament that is
a) a nursing home for politicians that some national party can't get rid off because of prior achievements or
b) has to move out of sight for a couple of years because of national affairs.
c) Also "parliament" sounds somewhat democratic; but don't give them real power because otherwise they might stop you from getting things done -
like introducing software patents against Europe's interests.
and point me at an online EU-civics 101 tutorial that outlines how the EU government is organized
This looks promising (from the "International UNESCO Education Server for Civic, Peace and Human Rights Education").
Also, there is a very short overview on the(?) EU site.