MEPs want more time to save laws of the future

Date: 20/07/05

SEVERAL Parliamentarians say "lessons must be learnt" for future legislation following the assembly's landmark decision to kill off a law on computer-related inventions.

Some have warned that unless the European Commission brings forward more "clear and concise" proposals in future, other major draft laws could fall by the wayside.

The 6 July software patent vote - the first occasion on which a piece of draft legislation was rejected by Parliament in the second reading - came after the proposed directive had been approved by the member states.

The rejection means the end of the directive as the Commission has said it will not submit any more versions of the original proposal.

More than 1,000 amendments were made to the version of the directive sent to Parliament by the member states, the 'common position'. German Socialist MEP Jo Leinen believes that the assembly has to streamline its working arrangements so that draft legislation has a chance of becoming law.

"Maybe it should be just the political groups and not individual members who can table amendments," he said.

Major laws, such as the REACH chemicals legislation and the services directive, are on the assembly's agenda in the next months and many MEPs fear the complexity of the drafts, the political controversy surrounding them and the fierce lobbying which will be deployed to influence deputies will make the adoption of these laws difficult. More than 5,000 amendments to REACH have been put forward in the nine committees which study the proposal and 1,000 amendments have been put forward on the services directive.

UK Liberal MEP Andrew Duff said that on the software patent issue MEPs had "insufficient" time before the vote to consider all the pros and cons and warned that a similar situation could arise with REACH.

"There has to be more time between the completion of a committee's work and publication of its report on a particular issue, and a debate and vote in plenary," he said.

"In the software patent case, this period was not long enough for the political groups to assimilate all the arguments on what was a complex issue."

He added that although it was "besieged by lobbyists", Parliament would have profited from having had "more reliable, independent advice".

The selection of a rapporteur, or author, of dossiers should also be reviewed, says Duff: "A rapporteur should not be chosen on partisan grounds but rather on his or her level of objectiveness and capacity to broker a political deal." Mark MacGann, director-general of the pro-patent EICTA, an industry association representing digital technology firms, disagrees with Duff. "These proposals [software patent] had been on the table for three years," he said.

"Parliament should look within itself for the reasons why this particular legislation ultimately failed. One thing the outcome shows is that there has to be more cross-party dialogue and co-ordination within the Parliament.." UK Socialist MEP Arlene McCarthy, rapporteur for the directive's first reading, said the Commission should produce "clear, concise and well focused" draft laws. "Too often, MEPs feel they are working in the dark on some issues because a directive's potential impact has not been fully assessed. We then end up with a lobbying situation that turns legislation upside down."

She foresees possible problems with the directive on services which will be debated by the internal market committee on 13 September: "A lot of organisations are saying the directive is too vague and unclear." In February, the legal affairs committee asked the Commission to re-draft the software patent law but the executive refused and Polish centre-right member Jacek Saryusz-Wolski said "lessons should be learnt" from the whole episode.

"This was a difficult and controversial piece of legislation but the Commission's 'take it or leave it' attitude inevitably resulted in the directive being rejected," he said.

"REACH and the services directive are equally controversial and sufficient preparatory work will have to be done on both before it comes to a vote in Parliament."

Finnish centre-right deputy, Piia-Noora Kauppi, says that, if nothing else, the software patent issue showed that Parliament has the ability to pull the plug on what it sees as inadequate legislation.

"The Council common position did not take into account at all the views of the majority of the Parliament. The Parliament has shown that it must be taken seriously," she said.

Article features comments from Members of the European Parliament who called on the European Commission to streamline its working arrangements so that draft legislation had a better chance of becoming law. The proposed Directive on computer-implemented inventions had been the first piece of proposed legislation to be rejected by the European Parliament in its second reading, 6 July 2005.