Brussels, 01/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - Thursday's Internal Market Council allowed stock to be taken of several issues which will be on the table of the European Summit in Nice next week. These include general interest services, the statute of the European Company and the Community patent. "The French government had above all included the question of general interest services on the agenda of the Council sitting", said French Deputy Minister for European Affairs Pierre Moscovici (who had chaired most of the work) at the end of the session. This intention is shown by the adoption of a political statement, in which the Fifteen recognise: a) the ability of the Member States to designate activities coming under the public service mission; b) the role of the European Commission in monitoring compliance with the rules of the internal market and competition; c) the legality of aid to offset additional costs entailed by the general economic interest mission; d) the essential role of services of a general interest for social cohesion and space planning, as well as in ensuring the global competitiveness of the European economy. "This declaration enables us to set out the scope of Article 16 of the Treaty (on common values in the EU). It will doubtless be annexed to the conclusions of the Nice Summit, which is the subject of great satisfaction", he added, recognising the "very high quality" of the European Commission's recent Communication on the subject.
The European Summit of Nice should, moreover, be able to adopt an amendment to the Treaty that would, later, allow for a Community jurisdiction to be given the power to statute in litigation linked to counterfeiting and the validity of Community patents, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market Frits Bolkestein, announced, welcoming the news. "But even with an agreement in Nice, a great deal of work will remain to be done to set up such a jurisdiction and to establish the Community patent in the time provided by the European Summit of Lisbon, or by end 2001", he warned. The amendments planned for the Treaty would, notably allow for the creation of specialised jurisdictions beneath the Court of First Instance, but the debate remains whole on the jurisdictional structure to set up. The Commission would like the establishment of a centralised jurisdiction first. For several Member States, however (including Germany), this competency should remain national, only the appeals procedure having to take place at community level. Several contentious issues also remain in suspense, including the linguistic regime to provide for the Community patent and the link to establish with the European Patents Office of Munich.
On the statute of the European company, the fifteen simply took note of the latest developments on the issue at the Social Council of 28 November. Bilateral contacts with Spain will continue up to the Nice Summit. "President Chirac was with Jose Maria Aznar on Wednesday, and we hope to be able to conclude under the French Presidency", said Moscovici.
Significant progress over regulation concerning Community designs and models
Another important result, the Council reached a unanimous agreement on two delicate themes of the regulation on Community designs and models, namely the protection of spare parts for complex products (such as visible spare parts for cars) and those of unregistered designs (notably frequently used in the toy and textile sectors). Spare parts could thus be registered, but the resulting protection would not cover the use for repairs. "On the other hand, it will not be possible to use a part of an existing car model to create a new model", explains an expert. The EU 15 also approved the principal of protection with registration, thus it could, for example, be used to ban a copy. However, this protection has a reduced character, notably in its duration that would not exceed three years (against 5 years renewable up to 25, for registered designs). The Council was, either way, unable to approve this regulation due to linguistic divergences similar to those posed in the field of patents.
Finally the Council approved the regulation on the protection of data of a personal nature by Community initiations and bodies (approving all the European Parliament's amendments) and welcomed the positive assessment by the forum on the Internal market, which had gathered during the week political, entrepreneur and non-governmental organisation representatives.