Draft Letter by Erik Josefsson to Council Diplomats
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With slight changes by Hartmut Pilch. Please feel free to recycle, translate, adapt, whatever, and send to Council diplomats of your country
- Dear Mr/Mrs. Due to the Commissions unexpected denial of the Parliament's request for a new fresh start on the software patentes directive, the future of the directive is now in the hands of the Competetiveness Council which will meet in a few hours (10:00 Monday morning, 7 March 2005). As well unexpected, but on the contrary most welcome, is Denmark's decision last friday to, at this meeting, propose a solution for renegotiating the text in the Council (which would be a different means to the same end). This is technically done by first withdrawing the directive from the published list of A-items, and second to propose it to be discussed as a B-item on a subsequent Council meeting. Please accept my apologies for urgently calling on not only your attention, but also for your help, but there is an immediate risk the Commission will not accept such a proposal. It is most likely the Commission, and maybe even the Council Presidency (Luxemburg), will argue a once agreed upon text can never be (re)negotiated, even if there no longer exists a qualified majority for it. This is a) not true according to the Council's Rules of Procedure b) against the explicit will of member state parliaments like the German Bundestag, the Dutch Tweede Kamer and the Spanish Senate. Please forward the following message to the ministers and representatives who speaks on behalf of your country tomorrow morning:
- A breach of the "unwritten rule" that political agreements
- automatically turn into common positions is neccesary in this case and will not lead to general instability of political agreements. This case is unique in many ways. Moreover, the precedent of reopening negotiations on a political agreement makes the Council's lawmaking process more accountable, more legitimate and more stable. Only those who are used to ignoring national parliaments can have a reason to fear this precedent.
- The directive project must not be sacrificed for the fear of
- setting a "dangerous precedent". The danger is rather the opposite, that the Council commits to imaginary rules that do not serve a legitimate purpose. It is therefore of paramount importance to protect the directive project against withdrawal attempts.
