Since I'm not in the EU, I have to ask... [LWN.net]

Since I'm not in the EU, I have to ask...

Posted May 8, 2004 4:48 UTC (Sat) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047)
Parent article: FFII: EU Ambassadors vote to back Software Patents

Why does the EU even have a parliament, if the actions of that parliament can be overruled at the whim of an unelected council that is not directly accountable to the people of Europe? This hardly strikes me as a progressive or democratic arrangement. Perhaps the EU itself needs reform, not just its patent policies?

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Since I'm not in the EU, I have to ask...

Posted May 8, 2004 12:33 UTC (Sat) by ecureuil (subscriber, #3507) [Link]

This council represents the European national governements which are
elected.

If the commission and the council rejects the law voted by the European
Parliament there will propose a new text in second reading to the
Parliament and there is a compromise mechanism to try to find a middle
ground between the Commission position and the Parliament position.

It won't happen before June when Europeans elect a new Parliament. They
will certainly be a huge increase in the next Parliament of populist
anti-european parties. What will be their position on Patent law ? My
guess, is that it is a much too complex problem for their little closed
minds. The Commission is also going to fall at one point or another as
Romano Prodi looks more and more interested to run for office in Italy.

What will be the next steps for the Software Patent directive ? It can be
buried and left to the next commisison if it seems that there is not
enough consensus or the commission
could try to push it through a new untested Parliament hoping that they
will undo what the precedent Parliament did.

U'm from the EU(Estonia) and AFIK...

Posted May 9, 2004 18:15 UTC (Sun) by XERC (guest, #14626) [Link]

..the main problem of the EU is the lack of democracy. AFIK
the governments have almost nothing to do with it, since the dicision
will be taken by a council of ministers at the given field and
at this case, the council of ministers are basically an ordinary,
nontechnical, noncaring, locally unrelevant group of clearks,
who don't understand the issues, that are related to software patents
and who have a mentality of thinking: "well, let's ask the patent
lawyers, after all, they are the experts at that given field".

So the ministers just take what's feed to them, without having even a glue, what's going on.
Naturally, that issue could be solved by a prime minister or a
pressure from a local parliament, but as the topic is just TOO TECHNICAL
FOR THOSE ORDINARY OFFICE CLERKS, none of the other politicians care.

There will always
be people, who like to turn some situation to account, so the root of the problem is:
THE LACK OF DEMOCRACY in EU.

U'm from the EU(Estonia) and AFIK...

Posted May 9, 2004 22:30 UTC (Sun) by XERC (guest, #14626) [Link]

I apologize for the terrible spelling mistakes. Generally I tend to spellcheck my texts a little more. I just wrote it in a hurry.

EU and Democracy

Posted May 10, 2004 10:47 UTC (Mon) by Felix.Braun (subscriber, #3032) [Link]

governments have almost nothing to do with it, since the dicision will be taken by a council of ministers at the given field

I'm sorry but this statement makes no sense. The Council of Ministers -- as it's name implies -- is composed of the member State's competent ministers. Hence, the Council represents national governments which are all democratically elected and subject to democratic review by their national parliaments.

Of course, it is true that representatives of the executive branch of government usually don't have that much of a say in the legislative process. This is why it is said that the EU has a deficiency of democracy. The democratic scrutiny is weakend by one more level of indirection.

However, this does not apply to the present case, where the Council of Ministers and the EU Pariliament have to co-operate in the legislative process. Even if the -- democratically elected -- ministers should vote to back software patentability, the EU Parliament would get another chance to oppose this bill in it's second reading, albeit with stricter requirements of majority.

EU and Democracy

Posted May 11, 2004 22:55 UTC (Tue) by XERC (guest, #14626) [Link]

Fair enough. Put together two sides:
side 1: Parliament
side 2: Council

Now, theh two sides have to do something and each of them has it's own,
subjective, opinion and motives. Would the discussion be fair, if one side,
let's say, the Parliament, has to ask the other side, what to do about it, but the other side, let's say, the Council, does not have to ask the Parliament anything to do take action regarding to the given issue?