Strasbourg, 10/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 9 February, Elzbieta Bienkowska, the European commissioner for the internal market, clarified the role of the experts' group involved in the issue of ensuring respect for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). This body will be helping the Commission prepare future legislation on copyright.
The Commissioner addressed the European Parliament and expressed her concerns about the possible duplication of tasks by this group. The latter was set up in September 2014, following a decision by the Commission and the Organisation for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM), the European agency in charge of registering Community marks. According to the Commissioner, the group of experts has the task of “advising” the Commission and “assisting it in its political initiatives”. Its mandate will therefore be quite different from that of the OHIM itself, which is in charge of putting the provisions that already exist “into practice”.
The Commissioner also explained that the work of this group would not create any additional spending and that she intended to invite MEPs to take part in its meetings, as observers.
The S&D and EPP groups warmly welcomed the clarification provided by the Commissioner. The ELDD and ECR, however, were much more critical and went as far as describing the setting up of this group as a “waste of funding”. Julia Reda (Greens/EFA, Germany) called on the Commission to begin the necessary steps to provide Parliament with observer status. (JC)