Brussels, 17/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - The "Internal Market" issues will receive the lion's share of the Internal Market/Consumers/Tourism Council in Brussels on 21 May. Ministers will be referred three important and sensitive legislative issues for which political agreements could be reached - leading principles of the Community patent and the traditional directive on the public procurement package - or at least a general guideline, as the Spanish Presidency hopes on the "European co-operative company" package, in view of the 3 June Social Affairs Council. The Council should adopt a resolution on the simplification of environmental legislation, conclusions on the updating of the strategy for the internal market and discuss a number of other subjects.
The policy debate on the promotion of sales in the internal market will be the strong point of the work of the "Consumer" part of the session for which, however, no formal decision is expected. Adoption of a resolution on the future of European tourism at the opening of the Council, is the only item included on the "Tourism" part of the agenda (see pa. 11). Here is the session's agenda:
Community patent: The Presidency hopes that Tuesday's Council will adopted "political guidelines" on the sticky aspects concerning the creation of the Community patent, on the basis of the compromise presented at the beginning of the month by the Permanent Representatives (for details, see EUROPE of 4 May, p.13). As a synthesis of the situation, the Presidency proposes the following solutions for the four sticky issues: 1) linguistic regime: requests for patents could be translated into all Community languages; 2) jurisdictional system: cases would be dealt with by a panel attached to the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, as provided for by the Treaty of Nice. Beyond a certain threshold, regional chambers appointed by Member states could take over; 3) roles of national offices: the Patents Office in Munich could delegate research to national offices; 4) distribution of revenue: half of the fees collected by the European Patents Office would be distributed among the national offices, on as a proportion of their activities and the relative weight of the Member States in Council.
Public procurement: the Council could reach a political agreement on the "traditional directive" concerning the co-ordination of procedures for awarding public market contracts for supplies, services and public works. It will, however, simply look at the "state of work" on the sectoral directive concerning public procurement contracts for water, electricity and transport. The last differences over the traditional directive concerned, notably, the exclusion of financial services (which Belgium opposed), the formulation of a "recital" for postal services (for which France had reservations) and especially the social criteria in awarding public procurement contracts, that France, Belgium and the Netherlands want to introduce against the wishes of the United Kingdom and the European Commission. The Presidency has proposed a compromise which ministers could rally around. The Council is close to an agreement concerning the "competitive dialogue" engaged in between the adjudicating authority and providers of services following the publication of a call for bids, clause notably defended by the United Kingdom. By following the Commission, the Council should not take up an amendment the European Parliament made on first reading, which increased by 50% the threshold from which public procurement contracts would be subjected to the European directive. In its amended proposal, the Commission had taken on board 63 of the 103 Parliamentary amendments (see EUROPE of 18 January and 11 January). The public procurement platform has launched an appeal to the Council to it to agree to incorporate among the criteria for granting a public procurement market the fight against discrimination and against social exclusion.
Statute of the European Co-operative Company: the Employment and Social Affairs Council being in charge of this issue, the Internal Market Council should simply mark its agreement for the provisions of the draft regulation on the statute of the European Co-operative Company (ECC). The agreement on worker participation in the framework of the Statute of the European Company has allowed them to speed-up work on this joint issue. Reservations remain on three points: 1) obligation to mention, in the social denomination of the ECC, that the statutes provide for a limited liability of members; Germany invokes its internal regulation to demand that only "limited liability" be mentioned, which other Member States reject, considering it better to mention the exception rather than the rule; 2) disinterested devolution (non-distribution to members of assets and reserves of the co-operative company) in case of the dissolution of the EEC and the possibility of having recourse to different forms of distribution when that is permitted by the legislation of the Member State where the company has its headquarters: Italy should waiver its reservation on this point by introducing a "declaration" in the minutes of the Council;
3) the limits provided for regarding total of voting rights within the general assembly: the United Kingdom and Ireland have reservations on this issue.
Updating the strategy for the single market: on the basis of the Commission's latest communication, the Council should adopt conclusions presenting the necessary actions for the next 18 Months (see Europe of 13 April, p.11).
Administrative simplification: the Council should adopt a resolution on the basis of the Commission's December communication, while waiting for the action plan to be presented at the Seville Summit.
Internal Market scoreboard: Commissioner Frits Bolkestein will present the latest version of the scoreboard on the transposition of Community directives, published every 6 months (see yesterday's EUROPE page 9).
Services of a general economic interest: Mr. Bolkestein will brief them on the preparations regarding the Commission's communication on the subject. The European Summit of Barcelona had asked the Commission to present an assessment of the methodology in May and a report at the Summit of Seville, summarising implementation of the "guidelines" on services of a general interest, possibly together with a draft regulation on "group exemptions". The Commission must also stipulate, in a framework-directive, the principles relating to services of a general economic interest.
Working programme for the internal market: the Presidency will present a joint programme from the Spanish, Danish and Greek presidencies in the field of the internal market.
Customs programme 2002: while waiting for Parliament's opinion, expected in July, the Council should reach a general guideline for the new action programme customs 2007. With a budget of 133 million euro, this programme will, notably, prepare enlargement and the integration of customs administrations so that they function as a single administration in an enlarged Community.
Recognition of professional qualifications: Commissioner Bolkestein will present his proposals aimed at clarifying and consolidating directives concerning seven professions.
Promotion of sales within the internal market: while waiting for the first reading in Parliament, the Council will have a policy debate on the proposal for a regulation the Commission presented on 5 October 2001. The Presidency has asked ministers to decide on three controversial questions that are: 1) the extent of the field of application and degree of harmonisation required; 2) whether or not to adopt the same approach for the promotion of sales between professionals ("business to business") and between professionals and consumers ("business to consumer"); 3) what to do about goods sold at a loss (those delegations that allow this type of sale - banned in other Member states not to play in favour of large distributors - doubt the possibility of effectively implementing a regulation, given the difficulty of establishing the cost of production, for services, for example, with any exactitude).
Certain delegations could, moreover, speak out on two other issues of concern to them: - the link to establish between this regulation and the Green Paper on the future of consumer protection that sought to identify the most adapted approach to achieve greater harmonisation (pursuit of case by case harmonisation of specific legislation or adoption of a framework-directive on the principles to respect in commercial practices, complemented by targeted instruments: legislation or codes of conduct); - the nature of the legislative instrument to opt for (regulation or directive) and the most adequate legal basis (internal market, as the Commission proposed, or consumer protection, as some Member states recommend?).
The euro and consumers: on the basis of an address by Commissioner David Byrne, the Council will have an exchange of views on the situation in the twelve Member states of the euro zone.
Food hygiene: the Presidency will brief the Council on the state of progress in work on the proposal for a regulation setting out general rules regarding food hygiene "from the farm to the table", text that is part of a legislative package presented in July 2000 to consolidate, update and simplify Community legislation in this field. The Council's working groups insist that the provisions of this regulation comply with those of the regulation that the European Food Safety Authority established.
In addition, David Byrne will brief the Council on: 1) the state of progress in the communication the Commission should present at the end of the month to assure the follow-up to the Green Paper on the future of consumer protection; 2) the new multi-annual strategy recently defined by the Commission for consumer protection policy for the period 2002-2006 (see EUROPE of 13 and 14 May, p.18 and 6&7 May, p.10). The Council will also take note of the results of the fourth European Day of the Consumer (Madrid 13-15 March 2002) on the subject of consumer representation.
European Parliament Plenary Session