Bill Gates jets in to ease relations with the EU

By Tim King

Date: 27/01/05

Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, is to hold meetings with the European Commission and members of the European Parliament next Tuesday (1 February) in Brussels.

The meetings come just a week after Microsoft announced that it would not be fighting an adverse ruling in its legal tussle with the Commission over anti-competitive practices.

The visit coincides with attempts from some MEPs to re-open discussion of a directive on the patentability of computer-related inventions in the hope of amending it. Microsoft and other software firms have lobbied for the law, widely known as the software patents directive, saying they need patent protection.

But anti-patent campaigners have vilified the proposal as helping large software companies and stifling innovation.

A Microsoft official, confirming Gates's visit, said that the big theme would be economic development.

"He will be discussing how Microsoft can work together with Europe," the spokesman said. Gates would be ready to discuss issues of privacy, security and education, he added.

Microsoft said the visit to Belgium, which will include meetings with academics and industry, had been arranged to fit between his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos and an appearance at Microsoft's government leaders forum in Prague.

The Microsoft spokesman would not confirm with whom Gates had scheduled meetings. But Günter Verheugen, European commissioner for enterprise and industry, is on the list.

Gates is thought unlikely to raise the on-going anti-trust case, which has soured relations between the Commission and the world's biggest software company over the past few years. Last March, the Commission imposed a record fine of €497 million on Microsoft and ordered the company to make a version of its operating system available without Windows Media Player. In December the European Court of First Instance rejected Microsoft's request to have the sanctions suspended while it appealed against the Commission's decision.

The MEPs invited to meet Gates are active in the European Internet Foundation (EIF), an unofficial group in the Parliament working on information society issues.

"We have been invited for a buffet lunch. Our programme is scheduled for 90 minutes but I expect Bill Gates will be there for only about 45 minutes," said one.

Membership of EIF is open to all MEPs and it is funded by its business and associate members, who include Microsoft.

The EIF is chaired by the German Social-Democrat MEP Erika Mann.

"It will be an informal talk between him and a few MEPs, that I will be chairing," said Mann. "The goal is to talk about the development of the future technologies, how to understand the future, from his point of view. It will be very interesting to hear how he sees developments in the information technology (IT) field, how to develop the security aspect, what he intends to do."

Mann added that the discussion was "not about software patents, but I am sure that it will be brought up".

British Conservative MEP Malcolm Harbour, another leading member of the EIF, said: "I am interested to get Bill Gates's views on how he sees technology developing. "He has had interesting views on the spread of generic, pervasive computing. How are you to going to improve the accessibility of technology and its interoperability?"

Finnish centre-right MEP Piia-Noora Kauppi, speaking from Davos, where Gates was speaking, said she would be asking him about how IT might help in development issues.

French Socialist MEP Michel Rocard, rapporteur on the software patent directive, has declined to attend the meeting, according to sources.

Preview of meetings between Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, and the European Commission and with members of the European Parliament on 1 February 2005 in Brussels.