100 posts
A free trade area is not the same thing as a Single Market, so ...
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A free trade area is not the same thing as a Single (or Internal) Market. Thus those who cannot understand or do not wish to understand the difference should have remained in the EFTA or the rely only on the WTO (or the Commonwealth).NickPthinks on b...
Tea and Sympathy? Baroness Wilcox's appearance before the Scrutiny Committee on the unitary patent proposals (Part II)
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Mr. Kelvin Hopkins MP Mr. Kelvin Hopkins MP turned to the question of the impact assessment and referred to the issue that the Committee had heard the previous week that the impact assessment was out of date given that the EU was no longer going to...
Tea and Sympathy? Baroness Wilcox's appearance before the Scrutiny Committee on the unitary patent proposals (Part I)
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At 4:20 PM when the Committee adjourned, thisis probably what the Houses of Parliament looked like... Last Wednesday, a week after the first hearing of evidence by the House of Commons Scrutiny Committee given by the IP Bar Association, CIPA and EPL...
So, confidentially, what DO you think of WIPO?
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A rare first: the IPKat keeps his comments on WIPO to himself You may have been waiting for years to tell the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) what you think of it. If so, your chance has come. WIPO informs...
The Digital Policy Landscape Seems To Be Moving
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It seems to your author that the digital policy landscape has been moving significantly in recent days and weeks, possibly for the better. Firstly, and this is a biggie, Google has simplified and streamlined it’s privacy policy. It seems that t...
Is overlooking a fact an error of principle?
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MMI Research Ltd v Cellxion Ltd [2012] EWCA Civ 7 is a rare appeal that turned entirely on the facts, and yet it is not necessary to understand the invention to understand the appeal, except to say that it is embodied in a machine. There were two i...
Scrap the FTT, have a Bourse Tax instead
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At 10.53 on 20th January 2012, the Telegraph reported on their live blog: 10.53 A German Government spokesman says that an EU-wide financial transaction tax is still the goal, but that there may be a possible bridge with the UK via a bourse tax. Wha...
The patent system: some thoughts on stakeholders and users
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Lest anyone accuse this Kat of getting into an awful argument and then trying to change the subject, he states at the outset that he writes with both urgency and frequency on more or less all aspects of intellectual property law, so the switch in the...
EU’s Barnier moving on?
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Rumours are afoot that EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier may be gearing himself up for a possible return to Paris after the French general elections. read more...
Norway almost as deeply integrated in the EU as the UK
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When we think about Norway and the European Union, Britain tends to surface. But what is Norway's EU relationship in reality? Media shortcut EurActiv alerted me to the publication of the study on future EU relations of Norway. The article presents th...
Are the credit ratings agencies being objective?
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After weeks of threats and rumours, credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) finally downgraded nine eurozone countries last week (including France, which lost its treasured triple-A credit rating). S&P said the EU draft fisca...
Agence de notations: quelques points à améliorer
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Après le récent tir groupé de S&P et la dégradation des dettes souveraines de neuf états membres de la zone euro, c’est l’occasion de se poser quelques questions sur le fonctionnement de ces agences de notations (AN) ; et de con...
I Never Ask for an Explanation of Past Positions
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Especially when it comes to the basic practice of European humiliation politics:Germany and Italy undermine French bid for financial taxGerman and Italian leaders at a meeting in Berlin said they would only back a financial transactions tax at the le...
The Single Market Opportunity - Getting Europe's SMEs Online
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Yesterday, the European Commission announced its strategy to build trust in the Digital Single Market. On Tuesday 24th January, we’re hosting a special event - The Single Market Opportunity: Getting Europe’s SMEs Online - right here in Brussels
Pursuing the Digital Agenda - the Commission's e-Commerce Action Plan and Green Paper
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As promised, here is some more news on the European Commission's initiatives for the digital market: Today, the Commission presented its Action Plan on e-commerce and other online services, aimed at building trust in the digital single market. The Ac...
Making it easier to buy online: our action plan for e-Commerce
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Are you one of the 40% of Europeans who purchases online each year? If so you’re probably aware of the benefits of doing so – but also of some disadvantages. Online shopping and services can mean better choice, easier to use, easier to compar...
Europe looks to the Internet for growth and jobs
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Kicking off the year in which the Single Market turns twenty, the European Commission announced today its strategy to build trust in the Digital Single Market. We think this is an important announcement, because the Commission confirms the immense p...
Why I agree with Sarkozy on the FTT...!!
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"French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made it quite clear he is determined to forge ahead with a controversial Financial Transactions Tax (FTT), even if it means his country is the only one to implement it. It seems likely, then, that some form of...
Would a Financial Transactions Tax hurt Europe’s economy?
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made it quite clear he is determined to forge ahead with a controvesial Financial Transactions Tax (FTT), even if it means his country is the only one to implement it. It seems likely, then, that some form ̷...
No “crippling new tax on Britain”
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Letter sent to the Editor of The Daily Express on 5th January, 2012 Your front page claim that the EU will “hammer Britain with a crippling new tax” (5 Jan) is fantasy. First, as your own article says on page four, the UK has a veto on th...
Boundless arrogance
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Just to remind you, formally the European Community is made up of 27 countries each equal under the Treaties.Then you have reality.A European financial transaction tax will be in place by the end of year, French minister for European affairs Jean Leo...
European Commission Work Programme 2012: Internal market and services
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For some reason Eur-Lex stubbornly renders the headline of the bibliographic notice in Danish, although the rest of the text is in English. Anyway, the Commission work programme 2012, available in 22 official EU languages, is a suitable read when we...
BEREC consultation on draft Guidelines on Net Neutrality and Transparency
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At the political level the European Parliament, the EU Council and the Commission (Digital Agenda, Digital Single Market) have all been active on net neutrality issues recently. Closer to the ”factory floor”, the Body of European Regulators for E...
Apple's legal action against HTC part of "proxy war" with Google
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The computer technology giant Apple has won the latest round in a long patent war with competitors who use the rival Android Operating system developed by Google. The latest battle forces Asia's second biggest mobile phone maker HTC to strip off some...
Rolling the Dice: The E.U.’s Financial Regulatory Agency (the ESMA)
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Even though the European financial sector integrated significantly during the first decade of the twenty-first century, the E.U. Government’s regulatory infrastructure and content did not keep up. As in the U.S. until 1933, state regulation carried...
eCommunications: BEREC Work Programme 2012
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The blog post What is the EU doing for growth and jobs? presented the main economic reform programmes in the European Union. The entry Electronic communications in EU: BEREC blog posts focused on one part of the ongoing work on the Digital Agenda and...
Electronic communications in EU: BEREC blog posts
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The previous blog post What is the EU doing for growth and jobs? painted a background picture of main reform programmes in the European Union. In this context the Digital Agenda and the Digital Single Market are among the catchwords for growth-enhanc...
Why the City of London is European | Jo Johnson
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David Cameron must persuade the French and other EU members that London's financial centre is their asset tooNext month's Franco-British collôque will provide much-needed group therapy for a relationship in crisis. The easy part will be where UK del...
What is the EU doing for growth and jobs?
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The European Council has repeatedly endorsed and called for a Digital Single Market, as well as other growth reforms. This quote comes from the conclusions 9 December 2011 (EUCO 139/11; page 1, point 2): Recalling the key priority areas for growth it...
EU electronic communications: BEREC medium term strategy consultation
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In the introduction to the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), I mentioned that BEREC has announced a public consultation, which runs until 16 January 2012. Board of Regulators The latest meeting of the Board of Regula...
Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC)
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One part of the new EU regulatory framework for electronic communications, the telecoms package approved in 2009, was the establishment of BEREC. The BEREC Regulation 1211/2009, published two years ago, is available in 23 official EU languages; the E...
Unreasonableness and the Rebate
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While political battles are being waged over Cameron's veto, there seems to be at least one point of consensus within Britain: that the demands on the protection for financial services were reasonable. The Labour party hasn't set out exactly what it...
Barroso's failed attempt to single out Cameron
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There seems to be some continuing confusion over David Cameron’s demands at last week’s EU summit, specifically in reference to their impact on the 'integrity' of the single market. Unfortunately, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso...
The Purposes of Financial Regulation
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The Current Moment has a shrewd comment on the split at Brussels over financial regulation:There is lots wrong with this view of last week’s acrimonious summit negotiations. For a start, Cameron’s motivations were as much about avoiding a nationa...
David Cameron and EU Single Market
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We know that politics make strange bedfellows, but it becomes worrying when they reside in the same head. In March 2011, just ahead of the spring summit, nine national political leaders sent a joint letter on European growth to the president of the E...
Will a Basel risk-free ‘about turn’ be enough?
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News that Basel III is reconsidering the use of government bonds as eligible capital to be held in banks’ so-called liquidity buffers, couldn’t have come quicker.The world,...
Who rules Europe? Merkozy or financial markets?
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(Reuters) – “Standard & Poor’s has warned it may carry out an unprecedented mass downgrade of euro zone countries if EU leaders fail to deliver a convincing agreement on how to solve the region’s debt crisis in a summit on Friday.
LIVE UPDATE: Delayed agreement on unified patent due to reservations on location of Central Division
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The AmeriKat's eyes now studied on a Mondayevening of European patent debate Good evening, from the AmeriKat! According to the latest Competitive Council’s press conference, which took place moments ago, an agreement on the substantive issues of t...
The Financial Transactions Tax – One Big Mess
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So the Financial Transactions Tax (“FTT”) seems to be stuck in a rut at the moment. Last month, Chris Leslie MP voiced Labour’s support for the FTT provided that it was an international tax. In a rare show of cross party political agreement...
European (legal) culture & consumers
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The best part of my working day today consisted of reading a part of a thesis manuscript dedicated to the cultural dimension of national resistance against the 'Europeanisation of private law'. Having come to the end of the chapter, it seemed interes...
Our video guest: Dr. Bart Van Vooren, Copenhagen University
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Dr Bart Van Vooren is Assistant Professor in European Law and Integration at Copenhagen University. In this interview, taken during a recent debate in Brussels, Mr Van Vooren outlines the possibilities and problems around a European financial tran...
A glimmer of hope for credit rating agencies
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On what has been a bleak day for credit rating agencies after S&P’s faux French downgrade, here is a tiny bit of good news for the industry. Michel Barnier, the commissioner overseeing European financial regulation, is on Tuesday unveiling...
Financial Transaction Tax sparks disagreement in Council of Ministers
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At the end of the meeting of the 27 finance ministers on 8 November, two fractions became clearly visible. The Franco-German double, supported by Spain, sees itself opposed by a group of offensive anglo-saxon countries. “I would suggest that we...
Do markets threaten democracy?
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Yesterday I had a close encounter with BBC Radio 4. On receiving an email yesterday afternoon asking whether I might be able to ‘help’ with a programme going out today, I called them back. A friendly woman replied. It turned out that they had spo...
George Osborne tells his colleagues some plain truths about Tobin Tax
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The clip in Nick Robinson's report last night was great, but the full thing is even better. If you haven't got round to it yet, here's George Osborne's demolition of the Tobin Tax in full at Ecofin yesterday...
European Financial Transaction Tax – the story of a broken dream
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The G20 summit last week made significant advances in the introduction of a global financial transaction tax (FTT). Not only France, Spain and Germany but also Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia and South Africa have declared themselves in favor of an FTT,...
EU Digital Agenda: member state and market basics eCommunications
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Telecoms networks and services are sorted under the Commission's Information Society web pages eCommunications. There the web page 15th Progress report on the single european electronic communications market - 2009 offers you access to the communic...
EU Digital Agenda: Radio spectrum progress
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After some basic economic and market trends, broadband and regulatory developments as they appeared at the time of the Digital Agenda launch, we return to the Commission staff working document SEC(2010) 630 final/2, which accompanied the 15th progre...
EU Digital Agenda: regulatory developments
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We have looked at some basic economic and market trends, as well as broadband developments as they appeared at the time of the Digital Agenda launch. We return to the Commission staff working document SEC(2010) 630 final/2, which accompanied the 15th...
EU Digital Agenda: ICT markets and information society
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The latest roundups of my blog posts in the trilingual series about EU and national information society strategies can be found in the entries Euroopan digitaalistrategia – kirjoitussarja FI SV EN and Digital Agenda: EU and national FI SV EN. I c...
EU information society priorities revisited
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Is it possible that Europeans do not believe in a real digital single market as a realistic possibility, but see just one more slogan in an endless bog of internal market tinkering? European information society priorities As I mentioned in the blog...
Digital Agenda performance targets
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A number of the aims of A Digital Agenda for Europe have been turned into measurable targets, mainly in the medium term (by 2015). What can European businesses and citizens expect from their digital environment? Annex 2 (pages 40-41) of the Digital A...
”A vibrant digital single market”
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Originally the EU2020 flagship initiative A Digital Agenda for Europe was outlined in the communication Europe 2020 A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth COM(2010) 2020, then launched on 19 May 2010. However, about three months later...
EU2020: Competitiveness, innovation and digital single market
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A while ago I wrote a series of blog posts about the controversies regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA): IPR trade protection: ACTA controversy Innovation and competitiveness Then, I turned to innovation, competitiveness and infor...
EU Digital Single Market
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In July 2011 I wrote about how Mario Monti confronted the lack of an EU Digital Single Market. I looked at how Monti's proposals became a part of the Europe 2020 growth strategy (EU2020) and its flagship initiative A Digital Agenda for Europe. Variou...
A proper common sales law for Europe's common market | Viviane Reding and Diana Wallis
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The US has one – and now EU sales law will give businesses and consumers one internal market, instead of 27 contract lawsAt a time when Europe is confronting serious economic headwinds, the European Union is committed to helping consumers and busin...
Are consumers free to shop for cheapest TV decoders in the EU regardless broadcasting licenses? - ECJ in case Football Association Premier League and Others
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4 October 2011: ECJ case C-403/08 Football Association Premier League and Others Last post for today concerns the ECJ ruling of 4 October 2011 in the case C-403/08 Football Association Premier League and Others. It's strictly speaking not a consumer...
Online traders' cooperation needed to open the internal market
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Another interesting statistics have been made as far as consumers online shopping is concerned (Online shopping: cross-border deliveries found reliable but few traders sell abroad in the EU). Shoppers of 17 European Consumer Centres made a total of 3...
West MEP welcomes ECJ decision on tackling live football coverage
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Euro MP Sir Graham Watson has commented on the recent European Court of Justice decision allowing landlady Karen Murphy to air Premier League football games via a foreign television provider. 'Today's decision is welcoming news not only for the pub t...
This Premier League TV ruling may change little | Fiona Macmillan
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A ruling that football fans can use foreign decoder cards has wider implications for copyright, but new rules may replace oldOne of the things that copyright has traditionally allowed its corporate owners – media and entertainment corporations, pub...
EU leads the world on financial transactions tax
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S&D Euro MPs welcomed the European Commission's proposal to create a financial transaction tax in the EU for which they have been campaigning for months. Said S&D spokesman for economic and monetary affairs, Udo Bullmann and Anni Podimat...
Financial Transaction Tax is politically and economically unwise
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Banks, just like any other corporation do not pay taxes. People pay taxes, stockholders, consumers pay taxes. An FTT will put the entire burden on the citizenry and will make the eurozone less... To view the full entry click on the title or visit ht...
A Robin Hood tax could turn the banks from villains to heroes | Bill Nighy
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An EU-wide Robin Hood tax is close to becoming reality. Cameron must now tell the City to get on boardIt's a script that even Hollywood might have balked at. In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the second world war, a small band of m...
