Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-02-14-Speech-1-107-000"
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"en.20110214.14.1-107-000"2
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"Mr President, in my first speech this evening, I spoke in a language which is the language of the European patent and in two languages which, for the time being, are not the language of the European patent. Allow me now to speak in my mother tongue, which is likewise not the language of the European patent as things stand at present, and is a language that is spoken by a total of only 15 million people worldwide, 10 million of them in Hungary. Thus, I am saying to the Spanish and Italian Members in particular that believe me, we do devote great attention to the equality, importance and use of languages.
Allow me also to make a brief digression on behalf of a Member State which, in a sense, I represented until six weeks ago – because now I do not represent a Member State – but until six weeks ago, I represented a Member State that held a different opinion on the issue of the patent. Over the last few months, the Hungarian Government has changed its former position. This was not a simple decision. As regards the factor that caused the Hungarian Government to change its mind, this was the very serious dialogue held with the ‘business community’, with the representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises, and they unambiguously asked the government to change its earlier reluctant, or rather negative, stance in order to enable Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises to benefit from the unitary European patent and to make savings thanks to a functioning linguistic regime.
The situation which has evolved now – 25 out of the 27 – is far from ideal. We all are, as Hungary has also been from the start, supporters of the single market. We trust and believe that accomplishing this will strengthen European growth, which – as a great many honourable Members have said – is now a necessity in the post-crisis European Union. To achieve this, we must do everything we can. I am convinced that the unitary European patent and the linguistic regime as one of its elements must be seen in this context. Moreover, as Commissioner Barnier has also pointed out, I believe that both Italian and Spanish companies will also benefit from the creation of the unitary European patent system.
I would also like to react to two other remarks. One is, why this great haste and why this fast pace, because the Commission only tabled its proposal in July. As a matter of fact, you have already answered this question as well. Let me remind you that the debate on the linguistic regime alone has been going on for ten years in the European Union, so I believe this is not a matter of haste. Another comment concerned the ultima ratio, whether we have actually done everything possible to find a solution that is acceptable to all Member States.
I believe that the Belgian Presidency actually did do all it could. We only need to recall that even during the autumn, more and more new proposals were tabled with the intention of establishing this system in all 27 countries of the single market. Unfortunately, in spite of all the efforts, eventually, 12 Member States asked in December for closer cooperation to begin and, as has already been mentioned, their number has now increased to 25. Thus, there was nothing more to be done here, and the Presidency was unable to do anything other than to appeal for closer cooperation, and to this end it has asked, and now I ask personally as well, for your support in the voting. We need the single market and we need to strengthen it. We know, as several studies have shown, that one of the principal obstacles to this is the absence of unitary patent protection and so we should act to stop this hindering our small and medium-sized enterprises in particular in innovation and in enhanced performance."@en1
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