software patents in the EU

[waider]

I think it's great that Poland keeps blocking moves to rubber-stamp the EU Software Patent Directive, but I want to know what the hell it's doing in front of the Council of Agriculture and Fisheries in the first place. I've heard of "rider" bills, but this is ridiculous.

Comments

The intricacies of the EU

[mopti]

Don't you know that agriculture runs the EU?

Actually, this is bad - or at least not good - whatever your view on the proposed directive is.

The item was on the agenda as an "A list" item, which means that it is before the council for rubber stamping by the Ministers. The entire list of "A" items is adopted in one go.

Legally, there is no such thing as the "Agriculture and Fisheries" Council. There is a single Council of Ministers of the EU (not to be confused with the European Council, which consists of heads of government, of at least one State [France], and the President of the European Commission).

The Council meets in "configurations" of Agriculture, of Finance, etc. Any particular configuration doesn't meet too often, and when it does the meeting is used for the ministers to negotiate the political issues of contention within their sphere (and for the minister who is the presidency to push their 'I'm now leading Europe' agenda).

When there is agreement at political and legal level on something within the scope of one configuration, say Education, but their next meeting is not for some months, the matter can be put on the agenda of the next meeting of the Council, which might be in its Agriculture configuration (legally, the same body -- just the particular individuals are not the ministers for Agriculture), and they can do the legal bit they need to do for it to become law or move to the next stage.

Actually, Agriculture meets monthly (most other configurations meet every three months), so it is reasonably likely to get a lot of "A" list items. (The General Affairs and External Relations configuration also meets monthly.)

Whatever your view on the patent directive, it should not have appeared as an A-item if Poland was not happy. Either Poland mislead the other countries or somebody was trying to pull a fast one. Or maybe it was just a cock-up. Or maybe the expansion of the EU changed something!

And there is one other item about the news story that you linked to that might puzzle me if I didn't guess that the writer probably knows their software patent issues better than the impenetrable EU decision making procedures. The JURI committee cannot restart the whole process. It is a committee of the European Parliament and it doesn't have the power of initiative in the EU legislative process.

Re: The intricacies of the EU

[waider]

I'd more or less assumed that it was indeed just a case of the available council as opposed to the bill specifically sitting in front of the Ag & Fisheries people, it's just weird that it's happened twice now (although not so weird if they meet monthly). The thing about this is that I don't know who's actually pushing it - aside from the obvious Big Media Fat Cats Cartel HUAHGUALAHGLAGHAUGHAL - because as best I can understand the coverage, it should never have even gotten this far due to the various parts of the EU that have rejected it or recommended against it or what not. At this point the proponents are saying that the whole democratic system is under threat, which strikes me as complete bollox - if there is a step required to proceed any further with this nonsense, the presence of that step is a part of the democratic system in question and suggesting that it's simply a rubberstamp is a far greater challenge to the system as a whole.

IMHO, of course.