Members of the European Parliament have voted in favour of the EU's constitution today (12 January 2005), with a 500 to 137 majority (40 abstentions), setting the EU on a path toward more integration and a little bit more democracy. In the afternoon, the Constitution was celebrated with concerts, balloons and a festive debate involving Parliament President Josep Borrell and author Jeremy Rifkin. While the general tendency of the Constitution, as compared to present practice, is widely welcomed, critics say democratic standards in the Constitution are still far from being satisfactory and there is an inherent risk that the Constitution will freeze this situation for a long time. The vote is seen as being a blow to Constitution opponents in such countries as the UK and France, where the prognosed "no" vote in EU Constitution referenda is

61 Members of the European Parliament from 13 countries have signed a motion for a resolution calling for a new first reading of the software patent directive. According to the motion, the situation has changed substantially (with risks for public administration) and the European Parliament itself has changed, two formal reasons to be able to call for a renewal of the procedure.

The motion was initiated Jerzy Buzek (Christian Democrats, former prime minister of Poland) and Adam Gierek (Socialists, Poland). Amongst the signatories are many Polish MEPs, but also veteran MEPs that welcome the initiative as a way out of the political deadlock between Council and Parliament.

The motion is a great success for the anti software patent movement, especially the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII). Their relentless lobbying last year against the patentability of pure software has caused many MEPs to remain strongly opposed to Council attempts to introduce a very broad and vague patentability of computer-implemented inventions.

The EU Court of First Instance has entirely dismissed Microsoft's objections to a set of sanctions against the software giant by the EU Commission. The Court rules that the Commission's decision does not "cause serious and irreparable damage" to Microsoft. Microsoft requested an interim measure from the Court that would hold up the Commission's decision until the case has been reviewed by a higher Court in a lengthy procedure. Now that the Court of First Instance has rejected Microsoft's request the software giant will have to implement the Commission's decision in short time.

In March 2004 Microsoft got a record fine of 497 million euro after a five-year investigation by the Competition Commissioner into Microsoft's business practice. The Commission ordered Microsoft to offer a version of

Public consultation on new action plan eEurope 2005-2010. Participants are invited to consider how European Information Society policy should evolve over the next five years if the EU is to reach its 'Lisbon Goals' by 2010.

Contributions are invited by e-mail and should be submitted by 16 January 2005.
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/2005/all_about/2010_c...

Lisbon goals portal site
http://europa.eu.int/comm/lisbon_strategy/index_en.html

The European Commission has adopted, on 7 December 2004, its annual report on the implementation of the EU electronic communications regulatory package. The report states that 20 of the EU's present 25 Member States have notified the Commission that they have adopted primary legislation transposing the package, which became law in 2002. The Commission has launched infringement proceedings against Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, and Luxembourg, who have so far failed to notify transposition. All of these countries have failed to transpose the 2002 e-Privacy Directive, which is part of the package.

The Staff Working Paper attached to the report examines in particular three issues from the e-Privacy Directive, which are according to the Commission "most debated in the market and by national authorities, and which may have a significant impact on the consumer": Data retention, spam, and cookies.

Contrary to expectations which already saw the majority of the Council of the European Union shifting to opposing software patents, the Council seems to be taking preparations to adopt its much contested draft Common Position, dating from 26 May 2004, during one of its meetings in the week before Christmas. The current Dutch Presidency of the EU seems to be so eager to have the document passed during its term that the paper is likely to be adopted either during the Environment Council on 20 December or the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 21-22 December, just because there will be no more other Council meetings before the end of the year.

The adoption of a Common Position does however not mean that, as a recent Slashdot article says, the Council will manage to 'circumvent' the European Parliament. In the co-decision procedure, the adoption of a Common Position just sends out a strong signal to the Parliament that the Council will remain stubborn.

In a response to the European Commission on 9 December 2004, EDRI welcomes the creation of a Human Rights Agency within the European Union.

"The creation of the Agency is especially relevant at a time when, one the hand, many new EU countries have joined through the expansion of member states from 15 to 25 countries and, on the other hand, the European legislation is extending its scope to new fields and sectors, especially those relevant to the third pillar," EDRI states.  

In the response EDRI stresses that since human rights issues cross-cut all policy areas of the European Union the creation of one central Agency must be complemented with more effective human rights mainstreaming in all EU policy areas and activities.

EDRI suggests that the Human Rights Agency focuses on:

1. Strengthening and promoting the protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law within the member states, and in the EU institutions and work areas.

The draft Framework Decision on the retention of traffic data resulting from electronic communication has been sent to the European Parliament at the beginning of December. This started the public part of the lawmaking process. But the Council of the European Union has still failed to declassify the very document that the Parliament is supposed to vote on next spring.

On 2 December 2004 the ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, united in the JHA Council, decided to focus on an extended obligation to store telecom traffic data. Instead of an obligation to store traffic data already processed by companies for billing or internal company purposes, a majority in the Council is now in favour of an obligation to collect and store all traffic data for law enforcement purposes. This includes for example location data collected when using a mobile phone, history of web sites visited, IP numbers of partners contacted in Instant Messaging services, as well addressees and senders of all e-mails sent and received. This data will have to be collected by ISPs and telecom providers, but standardised interfaces will facilitate access for law enforcement and intelligence services. With methods of data mining, the data can be assembled into detailed personality profiles, including contacts, travels, shopping habits, political, religious and sexual likes and dislikes, for all users of electronic communication.