[persbericht] CEA-PME calls on MEPs to support 21 cross-party amendments

[Ante Wessels]

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

PRESS RELEASE FFII -- [ Europe / economy / law ]

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=== CEA-PME calls on MEPs to support 21 cross-party amendments
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Brussels, 5 July 2005 - The Confederation of European Associations of
Small and Medium Enterprises CEA-PME, representing more than 500,000
corporate members throughout Europe, has sent a multilingual letter by
fax to all members of the European Parliament, which warns that the
future of an important SME-driven sector of Europe's economy is at
stake and calls on MEPs to support the 21 Buzek-Rocard-Duff
cross-party compromise amendments, or, if these do not achieve the
needed majority of 367 votes, reject the directive.  CEA-PME moreover
recommends the expertise of one of its member associations, the FFII,
which due to the great public interest in the debate has doubled its
number of corporate supporters from 1500 to over 3000 within the last
3 months.

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The Letter -- English version
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ATTN: XXX MEP

Dear Mr./Mrs. XXX,

As an association of associations we represent more than 500,000
European Small and Medium Enterprises and have intensely followed the
software patent dossier for a long time, because the future of an
important sector in which most employment and tax revenues are created
by SMEs is at stake.

With great concern we have witnessed the defeat of the socialist
rapporteur Michel Rocard in the Legal Affairs Committee, caused by
activism of a group of lawyers from EPP and ALDE who are known to be
strongly attached to the patent world.  Meanwhile however 50 members
of EPP, led by Prof. Jerzy Buzek (PL) and Zuanna Roithová (CZ), and 40
Liberals, led by Andrew Duff (UK) and the European Liberal Youth
(LYMEC)[1], have agreed with Rocard on a set of 21 cross-party
compromise amendments.  We urge you to attend the vote on Wednesday
and to fully support these amendments.

Only full support for the 21 cross-party compromise amendments can
enable the European Parliament to arrive at a coherent basis for
dialog with the Council.  If not even these 21 cross-party amendments
reach the required majority of 367 votes, we urge you to reject the
directive as a whole.

Please read the 21 cross-party compromise amendments and
justifications carefully so as to find out why the Council's "Common
Position" is not what it may appear to be at first sight.

If you need any further expertise[2] on this matter, please do not
hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely

Stefan Zickgraf
Managing Director

Walter Grupp
General Secretary

[1] LYMEC calls on ALDE to support the 21 cross-partisan amendments
   
 http://www.lymec.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=346&m
ode=thread&order=0&thold=0 [2] Please consult also the pages of our member
 organisation FFII, such as http://ffii.org/amend/
    http://www.economic-majority.com/


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Background information and further news
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* The original versions (PDF) will be published soon at
  http://swpat.ffii.org/log/05/ceapme0704/

* Number of Corporate supporters of FFII has doubled from 1500 to 3000
  since April 26 when the Economic Majority initiative was started.
  http://www.ffii.org/members/
  http://www.economic-majority.com/

* Last wednesday's Economic Majority conference, organised by
  CEA-PME together with Zuzanna Roithová and other EPP members

          http://www.economic-majority.com/konf050629/

  brought 100 SMEs and journalists of leading newspapers and tv
  stations to Brussels.  It also boosted the movement for cross-party
  amendments within the EPP, which achieved its targets shortly before
  the submission deadline on wednesday evening.

* FFII is planning the next conference in Brussels for September 20-21.
  It will focus on quality assurance for EU legislation and assemble
  scholars and judges to discuss the software patent experience as an
  example case.

* All party groups of the German Parliament have reaffirmed their
  stance against software patents, which is broadly equivalent
  to the line taken by the 21 cross-partisan amendments in the EP.
  http://wiki.ffii.org/MdpAnMdep050701En

* Companies like Sennheiser, who have been involved in multi-million
  euro lobbying for software patents, don't have anything to fear from
  the 21 compromise amendments, even though FFII has found that some
  the patent claims on which their campaigns are based, are hilarious.
  http://wiki.ffii.org/Sennheiser05En

* Stay tuned to our news ticker
  http://wiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn

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Contact information
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Hartmut Pilch and Holger Blasum (Munich Office)
info at ffii org
tel. +49-89-18979927

Erik Josefsson (Brussels Office)
erjos at ffii org
tel. +32-484-082063

Jonas Maebe
FFII BE
jmaebe at ffii org
tel. +32-485-369645

Rufus Pollock
FFII UK
rufus.pollock at ffii.org.uk
+44-1223-690423

Gérald Sédrati-Dinet
Vice President FFII
gibus at ffii.fr
+33-6-60-56-36-45

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