Last Saturday, the European Union's Council of Presidents and Prime
Ministers _welcomed_ <<the initiative for a European Charter for the use of
intellectual property from public research institutions and universities
(IP-Charter) to improve the knowledge transfer between research and industry
and its contribution to the development of the European Research Area>> and
_invited_ the Commission to <<present early in 2008 initiatives to follow up
on the Green Paper on the European Research Area>> {1}(para 37).
Then on Monday the Ministers of Research met in Luxembourg and {2}(page 11)
_welcomed_ ... <<the Presidency's initiative in moving forward a process
with a view to establishing a voluntary charter for the use of Intellectual
Property from public research institutions>> (got it?) and _invited_ the
Commission to develop ... <<a Recommendation to public authorities and
guidance for stakeholders. This should promote European competitiveness by
better exploitation of know-how and the prevention of unwanted outflow of
know-how>> (sic).
It looks as though heads of state on Saturday and ministers of research on
Monday have all forgotten their earlier idea that <<The Union shall aim to
strengthen its scientific and technological bases by achieving a European
research area in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technology
circulate freely>>{3} (page 116 of the (now abandoned) Treaty establishing a
constitution for Europe, Section 9 Article III-248, para 1).
Sadly
N.Miradon
{1}
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/94932.pdf
{2}
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/intm/94967.pdf
{3}
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2004:310:SOM:EN:HTML
Received on Tue Jun 26 2007 - 10:20:41 BST