Extraordinary EU Competitiveness Council (27 June 2011)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)
My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Baroness Wilcox, has today made the following statement:
I represented the UK at an extraordinary EU Competitiveness Council which took place in Luxembourg on 27 June 2011.
The presidency had organised this extra Council to reach agreement of general approaches for two draft EU regulations on the creation of an EU unitary patent under the enhanced co-operation process (involving 25 member states); and on the EU unitary patent language translation arrangements. The UK had successfully lobbied the presidency to postpone these decisions until this Council in June to allow time for parliamentary scrutiny.
At the Council the Hungarian EU presidency and the Commission repeated their support for the unitary patent. In my intervention I supported the general approaches for both draft EU regulations and I commented on two particular elements of the proposals—first that the system for the distribution and renewal of fees will need to be administered in a way that does not impose unjustified extra costs; and secondly that future implementation would need to be legally robust. All the 25 member states in the enhanced co-operation process unanimously confirmed their support for both general approaches and they were therefore agreed. The presidency and the Commission however confirmed that work would need to continue on the details of the proposals over the next six months, under the forthcoming Polish EU presidency.
There were also three short any other business items taken without any discussion among member states. These comprised information given by the presidency about EU energy research activities and confirmation that agreement had been reached on the Euratom framework research programme and on the EU consumer rights directive.