WRITTEN QUESTION E-0875/02 by Jonas Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Government credit guarantees.
Date: 2002-04-02
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: State aid, Sweden, United Kingdom, aeronautical industry, control of State aid, credit guarantee, motor vehicle industry

C 52 E/22

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

6.3.2003

With regard to the allegedly negative effects of the harmonisation of the resale right, the Commission
wishes to recall that the Resale Right Directive (1) is not yet in force and will not be until 1 January 2006.
In fact, the Directive has not yet brought about any change in the Member States. Furthermore, the
Directive provides for appropriate mechanisms aimed at preventing the displacement of sales of modern
art particularly in the highest price brackets outside the Community. Therefore, the claim that the Resale
Right Directive should be considered responsible for a ‘7,2 % drop in the European Art Market’ has no
basis, even less so if one considers that already nine Member States apply the resale right in practice.

Moreover, resale rights already apply in more than sixty countries world-wide. With a view to meeting any
perceived concerns regarding potential disadvantages for the European art market, the Commission is
committed under the Directive to seeking to further extend the application of resale rights at international
level.

Finally, in a report published on 28 April 1999 on the impact of Directive 94/5/EC (2), the competitiveness
of the Community art market compared to third countries’ art markets, the Commission found that the
adoption of this Directive had not had a significant impact on the Community art market and even that
the art market had boomed since the introduction of VAT on imports.

(1) Directive 2001/84/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 27 September 2001 on the resale right for the

benefit of the author of an original work of art, OJ L 272, 13.10.2001.

(2) Council Directive 94/5/EC of 14 February 1994 supplementing the common system of value added tax and
amending Directive 77/388/EEC (cid:1) Special arrangements applicable to second-hand goods, works of art, collectors’
items and antiques, OJ L 60, 3.3.1994.

(2003/C 52 E/023)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0875/02

by Jonas Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(2 April 2002)

Subject: Government credit guarantees

In early 2000, the Commission halted the Swedish Government’s plans to grant credit guarantees to the
aircraft engine manufacturer Volvo Aero in Trollhättan which the Commission judged to be illegal.
The Swedish Government and Volvo Aero had to change their plans and discuss converting the credit
guarantees into conditional loans instead.

In 1995, however,
the Commission had approved the UK Government’s plans to grant similar aid
amounting to GBP 200 million to Rolls Royce to enable the company to continue developing the Trent
project.

What is the difference between these forms of aid? Why did the UK Government’s aid to Rolls Royce in
1995 receive Commission approval and the Swedish Government’s aid to Volvo Aero in 2000 not do so?

Answer given by Mr Monti on behalf of the Commission

(22 May 2002)

To the Commission’s knowledge the only state aid to the Volvo Aero company during the past five years
dates from 1997.

At that time, the Swedish Government notified the Commission of its plan to give the company credit
guarantees. In October 1998, the Swedish authorities withdrew the notification. The Commission therefore
took no decision, negative or otherwise.

6.3.2003

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 52 E/23

In any case, the form taken by a State aid has no particular impact on the Commission’s analysis. In the
past, the Commission has authorised both reimbursable advances to the aerospace industry, for example to
Rolls-Royce (the repayable short-term loan referred to by the Honourable Member approved in 1998, aid
case N 17/98) and credit guarantees, for example to Fairchild-Dornier (N 281/99).

(2003/C 52 E/024)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0905/02

by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(25 March 2002)

Subject: Patent granted to Myriad Genetics

The European Patent Office (EPO) has granted three patents to the US company Myriad Genetics for the
commercial exploitation of BRCA1, a DNA sequence which can be used in testing the predisposition of
women to breast cancer. BRCA1 is a naturally-occurring gene, yet despite this the EPO granted a patent
for it.

In doing so, did the EPO base its decision on Article 5(2) of Directive 98/44/EC (1)?

Does the Commission consider that no patents can be taken out on naturally-occurring substances, such as
a DNA sequence or a specific gene, and does the Commission not share my view that an identical copy of
something that originally occurs in nature should not be patentable?

Does the Commission not agree that this patent does not involve an invention, but is a discovery, namely
that of BRCA1, and will it bring pressure to bear on the EPO to annul the patent on BRCA1?

(1) OJ L 213, 30.7.1998, p. 13.

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(24 April 2002)

The Honourable Member has drawn the Commission’s attention to three patents issued by the European
Patent Office on a test for the screening of female breast and ovarian cancer.

It should, first of all, be noted that the three contested patents referred to in this parliamentary question
were issued by the European Patent Organisation (EPO) which is a non-Community inter-governmental
organisation governed by its own provisions, namely the European Patent Convention and its associated
implementing regulation. Thus, the European Patent Office, as the body responsible for the issue of patents
within the EPO, applied the relevant provisions of the Convention and its implementing regulation in
assessing the validity of the patents referred to by the Honourable Member. It should be noted that this
implementing regulation incorporates the substance of the main provisions of Directive 98/44/EC on the
legal protection of biotechnological inventions (1).

The Commission would like to reaffirm the principles which were clearly established in the afore-
mentioned Directive. The simple discovery of an element of the human body, and of a sequence or partial
sequence of a gene cannot be the subject of a patent. On the other hand, an element isolated from the
human body or otherwise produced, including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, may constitute a
patentable invention if the conditions traditionally required by patent law have been met (i.e. that they are
they are novel, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application). This genuine distinction
between a simple discovery and an invention is based on the need for human intervention to invent
something which nature by itself would not be capable of achieving. In effect, an element isolated from the
human body or otherwise produced is generally the result of technical processes which have identified,
purified, characterised and multiplied it outside of the human body. The elements arising from these