Europe was crowned 'Internet Villain' of the year at the 7th Annual UK Internet Industry Award Ceremony, for "threatening the Country of Origin principle, which has encouraged e-commerce across the EU, and for the Draft Framework on Data Retention." The awards are an initiative of the UK Internet Service Providers' Association Council. Previous winners include the UK Home Office (twice) and Verisign. The negative price is part of a large commerce-celebrating ceremony with lots of positive prices for a.o. best light, medium or heavy consumer or business broadband provider.

Europe crowned as Internet Villain (25.02.2005)
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,39020369,39189185,00.htm

Press release ISPA (25.02.2005)
http://www.ispaawards.org.uk/categories/villain.htm

On 9 March the European Parliament debated in plenary in Strasbourg about the transfer of passengerdata (PNR) to the US and asked the Commission about the Council plans for mandatory data retention. EU Justice Commissioner Frattini for the first time stated in public that the Commission sees no legal basis for a framework decision from the Council and he personally 'will try to convince' the Council of Justice and Home Affairs to withdraw the proposal. "As a consequence, the Commission will present an alternative proposal on data retention based on Article 95 of the Treaty of the European Community by early spring 2005." Frattini also announced that the Commission will carry out "an impact assessment to determine to what extent the creation of obligations to retain data will have economic implications."

The European Competitiveness Council (the EU ministers of Economical Affairs/Industry) has adopted the controversial common position on software patents on 7 March 2005 as A-item. This classification means a proposal is adopted without further debate. Spain voted against. Austria, Belgium and Italy abstained, while Denmark, Cyprus, Latvia, Hungary, the Netherlands and Poland added a written statement to the Council minutes. Earlier, the European Commission had refused a request from the presidents of all the major political parties in the European Parliament to withdraw the proposal and start all over again.

In a first response, the EP committee on legal affairs (JURI) demanded to see full documentation (including minutes, declarations and transcripts of the recordings) of what happened in the Council. JURI decided to call for this record because they doubt if there actually was a majority of member states in favour of the Common Position.

On 11 February the European Regulators Group (ERG) released a common statement against regulation of Voice over IP services. The statement from the 25 national regulatory authorities was welcomed by EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, responsible for Information Society and Media.

In a press release from the Commission she says: “I expect Voice over IP to lead to more diverse and innovative services in the market which may well have an even bigger impact on consumers and businesses than email. (...) I am convinced that, as the market develops, the European Commission and national regulators will jointly ensure that throughout the EU, the roll-out of new IP-based services will not be hindered by regulatory hurdles."

In June 2004 the Commission organised a consultation on VOIP. The main concern from the industry centres around the obligations of PATS, publicly available telephone services. Among the 86 public responses is a paper from ETNO (European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association), the powerful European lobbying group from the incumbent telephony operators. They hesitantly reject general telephony demands on Voice over IP services such as guaranteed access to emergency services, number portability and provision of location information, but on the other hand see a market advantage if a national regulatory authority would provide, "on request, a standardised declaration to those suppliers that undertake to provide publicly available telephone services in accordance with the applicable conditions in the general authorisation." ETNO also sees an advantage in a separate number plan: "when VoIP services are offered as a nation-wide nomadic service, a dedicated number range may be appropriate." The many footnotes in the document show how divided the operators are amongst themselves. Some companies such as the Dutch KPN clearly try to preserve their market position in the telephony world by claiming for extra regulation, while other companies such as Telekom Austria and British Telecom seem to favour a more practical approach towards internet telephony.

The plan from the European Commission to transform the Vienna Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia into an Agency for Fundamental Rights has met with strong criticism from the Council of Europe (46 member states).

The Financial Times quotes Terry Davis, secretary-general of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, "With all the best will in the world, I can't understand what it is going to do." Instead, Mr Davis proposes a merger between the Council of Europe (founded in 1949) and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (created in the 1970s). Both organisations have a budget of around 180 million euro per year.

The Vienna-based OSCE, whose 55 members also include Canada, the US and central Asian states, gave the merger idea a cool response. FT quotes a senior official: "The OSCE is a security organisation with a comprehensive mandate, of which the human dimension is just one aspect. The Council of Europe is a legal norm-setter, while the OSCE is a political negotiating forum and a highly operational player with a strong field presence."

On the cold Thursday morning of 17 February, 250-300 people gathered on the square between the European Commission and the Council of the European Union in Brussels, Belgium for a demonstration against patents on software ideas. The demonstration was aimed to support the request made that same day from the European Parliament Conference of Presidents, i.e. the heads of the political groups, to the Commission for a restart of the procedure. Many turned up dressed as old-style prisoners, wearing badly fitting black and white striped clothes and signs such as "I am a software writer".

Bananas were handed out to everyone and were waved in the air as the group marched to hand letters (and bananas) to the Luxembourg presidency of the EU and the European Commission DG Internal Market. The bananas were a pun on a remark made early in January by a representative of the Luxembourg Presidency in a meeting with the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII): "This is not a Banana Republic". He meant the directive as adopted in May 2004 had to be adopted by a Council and procedures wouldn't be changed because of later differences in opinion in national parliaments. But according to the protesters, the two attempts to schedule the proposal as A-item at the inappropriate Council meetings of the Ministers of Agriculture and Fishery, even after it had become clear that there was no majority for the proposal anymore, surely indicated quite the opposite.

The European Commission has made it clear to all the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs in the EU that there is no legal basis for a framework decision on mandatory data retention in the third pillar. The draft framework decision on data retention was introduced in April 2004 by the governments of France, the UK, Ireland and Sweden in an attempt to bypass the Commission, the European Parliament and even national parliaments. In the third pillar, the ministers may agree unanimously on a decision to harmonise legislation on police and justice matters, without any co-decision right for the European Parliament and a very limited margin for national parliaments to amend such a decision. In the proposal for data retention this margin is clearly defined. National parliaments may choose a different timeframe for the retention, but only if they review their decision annually and report to the Commission why they are still differing.

The European Commission has issued a press release announcing stronger collaboration between anti-spam enforcement authorities in Europe. "Anti-spam enforcement authorities in 13 European countries have agreed to share information and pursue complaints across borders in a pan-European drive to combat spam. They will co-operate in investigating complaints about cross-border spam from anywhere within the EU, so as to make it easier to identify and prosecute spammers anywhere in Europe."

There are still very few public hotlines in Europe where internet users can report spam. These hotlines usually only accept complaints about unsolicited e-mail originating in their own country. In that light, the promise of closer collaboration between European authorities seems a bit futile, if the final recipients of the mail, the Internet users, are not involved.