Mr President, it seems that the long road to creating a single regulation on the legal protection of designs, drawings and models in the European Union is nearing its end. The large amount of time spent on this regulation was justified on the grounds of the importance of adopting the directive on drawings and models, a job that took most of the previous legislature and part of the present one. It was clear that once the more serious problems relating to the text of the directive had been overcome – a directive that can be considered as balanced – the task of establishing a resolution would be far easier and so it has been. The whole process proves that Parliament was right to adopt the approach in creating the directive first, followed by the resolution. Its decision to intervene to obtain the freeze compromise in drawing up the resolution, with the directive being subject to the codecision procedure, was decisive. What is more, this perhaps would not have been the case had the procedure been the other way round, i.e. first the regulation followed by the directive. Had this been the case, Parliament’s role would not have been as decisive and the balance between car manufacturers’ interests on one hand and independent body part manufacturers on the other would not have been achieved. The same can be said of the interests of consumers and insurance companies. The fact that this agreement – which is far from perfect, but which provided a way out of the impasse in such a contentious issue – was reached, made the task of creating this regulation and this report on the Commission’s proposal far easier. This task basically involved incorporating the compromises reached in relation to the directive in the regulation. If the European Union intended to announce laws regarding the harmonisation of Member States’ legislation, it was only right that its own laws were in line with the laws on harmonisation. Since the Commission’s proposal followed the wording of the directive almost to the letter, it received our support. On this basis, the majority of the amendments we endorse consist precisely in enhancing the similarities between the directive and the regulation. I should like to thank Mr Ferri for his report and, at the same time, welcome the flexible approach he adopted throughout proceedings. The rapporteur’s first report did advocate certain proposals which, though he believed them to be correct, in the opinion –and I believe in the better informed opinion – of many groups in Parliament, contradicted the freeze compromise relating to the repair clause. However, by adopting this flexible approach, Mr Ferri saw fit to withdraw his proposals and I thank him for that. At present, there are only two areas on which the rapporteur and my group disagree. The first relates to the definition of the individual character of the design, which incorporates an element that supposedly brings it into line with the TRIP agreements. This is neither the time nor the place to begin a debate on this issue. We do not agree with this interpretation and would go as far to suggest that the amendment in question includes certain distortions. The second point of contention relates to copyright and we shall vote against the amendments tabled by the Group of the European People’s Party .

Political group: PSE