WRITTEN QUESTION P-0762/01

by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Council

(14 March 2001)

Subject: Languages policy of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and the European Patent Office

The Internal Market Council of 12 March 2001 will probably consider the draft regulation on Community design systems. One important unresolved issue in this respect is the policy on language use: taking over the five official languages of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) or recognising other official EU languages, too, including Dutch.

The same problem arises with the draft regulation on the Community patent: the Commission proposes that one of the working languages (French, German or English) of the European Patent Office should be used for the patent application and that the new Community patent should be valid once it has been granted and published in one of those three languages, with a translation of the conclusions in the other two.

The Court of First Instance in Luxembourg is currently dealing with an appeal against the rules on language use of the Office in Alicante, with the Greek government intervening in support of the plaintiff, Mrs Kik, a Dutch citizen. The Greek government's position is that Community law does not recognise the supremacy of one official EU language over the others.

Does the Council take the view, with regard to the draft regulations on Community design systems and the Community patent, that Dutch should be recognised as an official language of the Trade mark Office and of the European Patent Office?

Does the Council support the Greek government in intervening in the abovementioned case before the Court of First Instance which challenges the rules on language use of the Office in Alicante?

Reply

(20 November 2001)

The Council would point out that the policy on language use at the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market was agreed at the Conference of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States, meeting at Head of State or Government level on 29 October 1993, in the following terms:

(a) The Conference agreed that the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (trade marks, designs and models), a body which the institutions of the European Communities are to establish, will combine the two bodies originally envisaged, namely the Community Trade Marks Office and the corresponding body for designs and models.

(b) The Conference agreed that the languages of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market would be Spanish, German, English, French and Italian.

The Council would remind the Honourable Member that, further to the agreement concluded on 29 October 1993, the language use policy of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market was laid down in the Regulation on the Community trade mark adopted unanimously by the Council. Also, it does not seem desirable for the Council to comment on a case pending at the Court of First Instance.

The Council would also point out that language use at the European Patent Office stems from the Convention on the Grant of European Patents (European Patent Convention), an intergovernmental convention which does not fall within the Community sphere.

The Council has recently begun examining the language rules for the future Community patent which the Commission put forward in its proposal for a Regulation on the Community patent. In any event, the Honourable Member will understand that the Council does not wish to comment on that proposal, or on the linguistic aspects thereof, until it has received the Opinion of the European Parliament, which has been consulted pursuant to Article 308 of the Treaty.