Brussels, 11/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - On 10 February, the Dutch Parliament adopted a resolution presented by Arda Gerkens (Socialist Party, PS) calling on the Government of the Netherlands to prevent the software patents directive from appearing on the Council agenda before the European Council has met the Parliament's request to resume first reading on this text. The intention was to include the controversial proposal as an A-item on the Council agenda of 17 February, therefore without debate. Although the Competitiveness Council had reached a political agreement in May 2004, the proposal was still blocked mainly due to Polish reservation (see EUROPE of 19 May 2004 and EUROPE of 11 February 2005, p.13, on the subject of the conditions set by Poland for accepting the proposal of directive). The Dutch parliament approved its resolution by a very small margin, 71 to 69, and Secretary of State Ven Gennip pointed out that she would defend the Council's position (although she was not very eager to obey the motion, according to information from the FFI, Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure). In the current configuration of the European Parliament, Arda Gerkens said, “we can expect the proposal will be rejected”. She went on to explain that “software patents are entirely unfair. They would among other things tremendously favour the large enterprises at the expense of small software developers”.
We recall that the European Parliament's legal committee, as Article 55 of the Parliament's internal regulation allows, urged President Borrell to call on the European Commission to refer the proposal to the EP again, which would allow it to be sent to first reading instead of endorsing the Council's political agreement without debate (see EUROPE of 4 February, p.14).