Brussels, 24/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Internal Market Council on Thursday 25th May should allow long-awaited progress to be made in the fields of foodstuffs, intellectual property and financial services. The famous directive on chocolate will thus be adopted definitively, and the ministers will mark their agreement on the last of the so-called "breakfast" directives, concerning honey this time. The Portuguese Presidency also hopes to reach a political agreement on the directive on copyright in the information society, as well as on the procedures for liquidation of insurance companies and on the carrying out of clinical testing on medicinal products.
The approval of the directive on public offerings is, on the other hand, postponed till a later date because the texts are not yet ready in all languages. Since last June, an agreement of principle has existed on this directive considered a priority in the Community timetable, but it has remained contingent upon settlement of the dispute between Spain and Britain over Gibraltar.
We give below the agenda of this session to be held under the chairmanship of Mr Francisco Seixas da Costa, Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs:
* Working of the Internal Market. Several points on the agenda will allow the Council to organise its work over coming months. Commissioner Bolkestein is expected to bring to the Fifteen's notice the bad results highlighted in the last scoreboard on the single market (see EUROPE of 22/23 May, p.10). Four States (France, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal) are considerably lagging behind in transposition into national law of the Community regulation, and adoption of projects, such as financial services or the information society, is taking longer, despite the fact that they are considered a priority by the summit. Mr Bolkestein will present the first annual revision of its "strategy for the internal market", a work programme finalised in November for the next 18 months and for which certain priorities have been reviewed since the Lisbon Summit. The Presidency will state what is involved in the Lisbon follow-up for the Internal Market Council, and the three countries that are to succeed each other at the head of the Council until July 2001 (Portugal, France and Sweden) will present their joint working programme.
* Legislative simplification. The Council will express, in its conclusions, its views on the possible improvements to the current system of simplification of the Community legislation. In a report diffused in March, the European Commission acknowledged that the Slim initiative (for simplifying legislation on the internal market), launched in 1996, resulted in few concrete successes. It considers, however, that it is useful to pursue the initiative and proposes solutions, to which the Council should adhere: better targeting of legislative sectors to be simplified, acceleration of the adoption process for simplifications, and the creation, within the advisory committee on the internal market (composed of Member State representatives and chaired by the Commission), of a group responsible for coordinating simplification work.
* Copyright. The Portuguese Presidency declared it was "determined to have a political agreement" on the draft directive on copyright and related rights in the information society. "It will not be easy", it said but the Lisbon summit hoped to see the text adopted before the end of the year. The aim is to adjust the legislation on copyright to digital technologies, which allow perfect copies and are a subject of concern for authors. It is also a matter of implementing the main international obligations arising from two treaties concluded in 1996 in the context of the World International Property Organisation. Alongside exclusive rights to be paid to the author (reproduction, distribution and access to the public, especially on an Internet site), the directive enumerates exceptions for which no special authorisation is needed, such as "technical" copies needed for forwarding works on the Internet network, or "private copies". This last point is still the subject of debate, between the more liberal countries such as the United Kingdom and countries such as Belgium, France, Spain and Italy, which call for more guarantees for right holders.
* Insurance. The Council will give its political agreement on the draft directive concerning the improvement and the liquidation of insurance companies, presented by the European Commission in 1987. A similar text was approved by the Ecofin Council on 8 May for credit establishments (see EUROPE of 10 May, p.11). The aim is to: - ensure mutual recognition in the Community of liquidation procedures, Undertaken according to the legislation of the country where the company has its headquarters; - to better protect creditors when they reside in another Member State than the headquarters of the insurance company; - to establish information procedures between Member States; - to stipulate the law applicable in certain specific cases. The project remained deadlocked for a long time, due to the dispute between the United Kingdom and Spain over Gibraltar.
* Honey. The Council will mark its political agreement on the draft directive setting common rules on the definition, composition and labeling conditions of honey. Talks have recently focused on the wording of the name of honey intended for industry and not for direct consumption. Again, the debate gave rise to a north-south divide, between those in favour of the wording "honey intended for industry" (Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal) and those in favour of a more flattering wording "baking honey" (Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden). The final text finally provides for different wording depending on the language and the preference of each.
* Chemical trials. The Council will mark its political agreement on a draft directive aimed at harmonising good clinical practice in conducting tests on medicines intended for human use. This draft, which the European Commission presented in 1997, tends to rationalise the necessary administrative procedures to undertake clinical trials and guarantee the same level of protection for all patients.
* Designs and models. At Spain's request, the Council will turn to ongoing work on the draft regulation on Community legal protection for industrial designs and models, aimed at introducing a single registration procedure to the Office for the Harmonisation of the Internal Market, set up in Alicante, Spain. Consulted for opinion, the European Parliament has nevertheless still not voted on the issue and technical discussions in Council are still at an early stage.
* Trade mark rights. As Sweden's request, ministers will again have an exchange of views on the question of parallel imports and the regime for when trade mark rights run out in the Community. As we stand, importers are not allowed to buy brand products in third countries to sell them on in the European Union, without approval of the manufacturer that holds the brand name. Several Member States (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands) would, however, like to amend this regime to allow for parallel imports. France, Spain and Italy are against this, wanting to protect the holders of the trade mark rights. The European Commission is not now considering altering the current system.
* Information society. The European Commission will present its "e-Europe" action plan for the development of the information society in Europe (see next page).
* Public procurement. The European Commission will present its two draft directives on the simplification and modernisation of the rules applicable to public procurement (see EUROPE of 11 May, p.12).
* Toy safety. The Council will discuss work on the draft directive, which the European Commission presented in November, aimed in the long-term at definitively banning the use of certain phthalates in the manufacture of soft PVC toys intended to be placed in the mouths of children under three years old. The opinion of the European Parliament is still not available.
* Food safety. The Council will look at the draft report by the Presidency on the European Commission's White Paper concerning food safety, report that will then be forwarded to the European Summit of Feira on 19 and 20 June.
* Chocolate. Without debate, the Council will formally adopt the directive aimed at generalising within the Union authorisation to incorporate in the manufacture of chocolate up to a maximum of 5% (of the weight of the finished product) of vegetable fat matter other than butter and cocoa (see EUROPE of 16 March, p.11).