WRITTEN QUESTION E-2606/02 by Michl Ebner (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Charges that distort competition in trade between countries.
Date: 2002-09-18
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: copyright, distributive trades, free competition, intellectual property, law relating to information, quasi-fiscal charge, reprography

20.3.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 70 E/3

by the financial revenue and consequently the financial reserve will continue to grow until that date.
Nevertheless, the financial forecast is reviewed annually, and if a financial imbalance of the scheme is
detected, measures will be proposed to rebalance the situation in ways that are similar to those adopted in
1990 following the significant deficits experienced in the late eighties.

The range of benefits offered by health insurance varies considerably between Member States, between
types of insurance, and within the same insurance type. Community provisions on social security do not
provide for harmonisation, but for simple co-ordination of the national systems. Every Member State is
free to determine the details of its national social security scheme, including which benefits are to be
granted and under what conditions.

(2004/C 70 E/003)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2606/02

by Michl Ebner (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(18 September 2002)

Subject: Charges that distort competition in trade between countries

Charges in respect of copyright are required to be paid in Germany, Austria and Italy, Member States of
the EU, with a view to protecting the intellectual property of authors, composers and music publishers.

Is it in accordance with the principles of the free market and in the interests of the EU that charges in
respect of copyright are payable in Germany and Austria on the works of authors, music publishers and
composers and that, following export, the charges are again required to be paid in Italy prior to resale?

Does such a practice not constitute distortion of competition?

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(22 October 2002)

In line with international obligations and the Union legislation on copyright and related rights, the national
copyright laws of the Member States provide authors with a number of exclusive rights. The distribution
right provides authors with the right to control the sale or other transfer of ownership of physical copies
of their literary, musical, audio-visual or other types of works and to receive royalties for their distribution
such as through books, videos or CDs.

According to the established jurisprudence of the European Court of
the distribution right,
however, exhausts upon the first sale of the copy of a work in the Union or the European Economic Area
(EEA), provided that such sale is made by the rightholder or with his consent. This means that, for
example, once an author or a book publisher on his behalf has marketed books protected by copyright in
one of the Member States, these books may circulate freely in the whole of the Union and may be resold
without further authorisation by the author (or the book publisher as his licensee) and without the further
payment of royalties.

Justice,

This jurisprudence, which reconciles the principle of free movement of goods throughout the Union or
EEA with the protection of the specific subject matter of intellectual property rights, has been confirmed
by several Directives on copyright and related rights, first with respect to specific categories of works,
i.e. computer programs (1) and databases (2), and in 2001 for all other categories of works (3), such as
literary works incorporated in books or musical works incorporated in CDs. Thus, the author’s consent
must be sought and a royalty has to be paid for the first distribution of a copyright protected good. In case
of further sales or other transfers of ownership within the Union or EEA no further consent or royalties
are due. The Commission is not aware of any double payment occurring in a situation of further
distribution.

C 70 E/4

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

20.3.2004

Royalties may also be due for other uses of a copyright protected good, such as for copying of a work, and
the payments in question may be raised on the marketing of certain products. These payments would,
however, not be a ‘double payment’ for further distribution as they would not be linked to the act of
distribution of a copyright protected good. For instance, in most Union Member States, authors enjoy a
right of remuneration for the copying of their works for private use. This remuneration is in general raised
on blank carriers of audio or audio-visual material and/or on recording equipment and has normally to be
paid by the manufacturer or the importer of such products. The remuneration schemes have to be in line
with the general principles set out
in the
information society, which Member States have to implement by December 2002. This Directive allows
Member States to provide for exceptions to the rights regarding private copying, including remuneration
schemes. However, as these schemes have not been harmonised at Union level, the exact conditions of
such schemes may differ from one Member State to another. The remuneration is in general only due if
the sale of the products in question will take place in the territory of the Member State but not if it is
destined for export.

in Article 5(2)(b) of Directive 2001/29/EC on copyright

(1) Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs, OJ L 122,

17.5.1991.

(2) Directive 96/9/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases,

OJ L 77, 27.3.1996.

(3) Directive 2001/29/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain

aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, OJ L 167, 22.6.2001.

(2004/C 70 E/004)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2617/02

by Michl Ebner (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(18 September 2002)

Subject: Differential allowances in the pay scheme of European Schools

Since September 2000 European Schools have had a new pay scheme for their teachers.

Teachers are appointed by the authorities in their home nations and are paid the normal rate for a teacher
according to the pay scales in their home nation. All income tax, social security contributions, etc. are
deducted from this salary in the home nation. As the rates of pay for teachers differ greatly in the various
home nations, the teacher’s salary is rounded up by the Governing Body of the European Schools so that
teachers in the European schools (ES) are paid at ‘the same rate for the same work’. The new approach in
the Adjustment Differential
It was pointed out that different teachers were paying different
proportions of their salary in income tax, because the home nations have very different tax regimes.
The Governing Body of the ES now declared this situation to be unfair. In order to introduce fairness, so it
was explained, the Governing Body would in future take as a benchmark the amount of tax a European
civil servant would pay if he/she were earning the same salary as a European School teacher and reduce or
increase the teacher’s pay accordingly.

is thus.

In this way the new pay scheme interferes in the tax situation which pertains between the teacher and the
national tax authorities, which means that the teachers have to give detailed information about their
income tax in their national country to the Schools.

Secondly, anything that legally reduces tax bills in the Member States simply puts up the sum deducted by
the ES. The teachers, however, still have the right to set these expenses against tax in their home state, but
the benefit of this right is immediately deducted from the teachers’ pay. In many cases like for British
citizens, this results in double taxation regarding pension tax.