Decision Procedure in the EC Institutions

Under codecision, Parliament can only accept, reject or amend the Commission's proposal.  If it is rejected, Parliament could still call on the Commission to produce a new proposal.  It is always open to the Commission itself to withdraw its proposal and submit a new one.

Once the draft report has been submitted to the Legal Affairs Committee, a deadline will be open for members to submit amendments.  Those amendments, together with the ones contained in the draft report and those contained in the opinions of the Industry and Cultural Committees will be put to the vote.

If there are a very large number of amendments tabled, it is possible that the committee will ask the rapporteur to try to reach a compromise on the amendments.  The report as adopted will then go to the plenary session, where there will be a further opportunity to submit amendments (although there are rules which mean in practice that only political groups, the lead committee or groups of members may submit amendments).  That will conclude the first reading.

Parliament will then await the Council's common position and any amended proposal from the Commission (the Commission usually limits itself to saying which amendments submitted by Parliament it is prepared to endorse)  Once the common position has been announced in the plenary session, Parliament will have three (possibly four) months.  In that period Ms McCarthy will produce a draft recommendation for second reading for adoption by the Legal Affairs Committee.  There will be no further opinions from the other committees.  At second reading, Paliament's Rules of Procedure limit the scope of amendments broadly to reinstating what it sought at first reading and/or amending parts of the common position which are new as compared with the original Commission proposal.

On the software patentability directive, COM(2002)92 2002/0047, at http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/oeil/oeil_ViewDNL.ProcViewCTX?lang=2&procid=5974&HighlighType=2&Highlight_Text=patentability they used to say

Green Party and Conservative youth organisations seem to be against

Patent lobby within large parties seem to be well organised and particularly influential in the two concerned committees. They may try to keep silence and then sudenly come up with a conclusion that looks like a compromise but is pro swpat and push this through the europarl very quickly in september.

It could inquire the Comission game or investigate certain EPO abuses but hardly monitor the patent system permanently.

1. The National Parliament (Bundestag) treats a subject as part of a legislative process
2. The National Parliament treats a subject in a general political way

The legislative role of the national parliaments is reduced to implementing the directive after it has been decided. If it does something else than required by the directive, the nation will be accused by the commission for treaty violation in front of the European Court of Justice (ECJ)

A general political discussion is possible. It could take a discussion in a committee as its starting point. There is an established procedure for informing the German Federal Parliament about EU plans so as to be able to influence them in their phase of nascence.

If one ore more committees have discussed the subject, a party group could submit a request for a resolution in which it expresses a political will concerning how the directive should be rewritten. However such a resolution would not be binding for anyone, not even the German government whose patent lawyers are deciding the policy in the Council of the European Union. The Parliament would have to use massive pressure, such as threatening to elect a new chancellor, if it wanted to enforce its will. Theoretically the government would have good reasons to follow the parliament, because the parliament is the legislator and a resolution is its only chance of exercising its legislative function within the EU framework.