[Fsfe-ie] McCreevy takes up post 1.11.2004

[Seth Johnson]

My tendency would be to assume that McCreevy is pro-swpat,
imagining them as part and parcel of the policies he promulgated
to create the "Celtic Tiger."


Seth

Alex Macfie wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 2004-08-24 at 15:01, Teresa Hackett [default] wrote:
> > Yes there is, because the proposal has to go back to the European Parliament
> > for a second reading, perhaps around December/January. Gay Mitchell belongs
> > to the European People's Party, the largest political group (268 out of 720
> > MEPs), so how the EPP group vote will be crucial.
> 
> Most likely its official line will be pro-swpat, because of Harbour (UK,
> Conservative) and Wuermeling (DE, CSU) as spokesmen. But last September
> a significant minority of PPE MEPs voted against swpat, which included
> entire national delegations (one being that of Ireland of course). A PPE
> anti-swpat caucus was formed around the Finnish MEP Piia-Noora Kauppi
> (who's back), and followers were found by both picking off individuals
> and finding opinion-formers within party groups who were anti-swpat. The
> other two big groups (PSE, ELDR) were handled likewise.
> 
> A lot of MEP minds *were* changed between June (when the JURI committee
> votes) and September last year. I can think of several PPE MEPs whose
> assistants told me and others they would follow the Harbour/Wuermeling
> line but who ended up voting against swpat. Avril Doyle is back which
> can only be a good thing. As for Gay Mitchell you guys can best judge
> whether his support for swpat is 'soft' or 'hard'. Maybe he was just
> following the herd and didn't know any better. OTOH he could be a
> creature of the civil service.
> 
> McCreevey belongs to the same party as Brian Crowley MEP, who seems
> strongly anti-swpat and led his group to vote that way. Have they
> talked? Would it make any difference? There seems to be a big gulf
> between Irish MEPs and the Irish gvt on this issue.
> 
> Alex
> --
> Alex Macfie, Taipei, Taiwan ROC              email <alex at cgce.net>
> Tel: +886 955 857477                        <http://www.cgce.net/>
> STOP SOFTWARE PATENTS IN EUROPE           <http://swpat.ffii.org/>
> 
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