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May 1974 to consider the draft. It will be a number of
years before the Convention will be in final form.
11.28. Two further meetings of the sub-group which
is revising the English text of the draft Convention were
held in Brussels. Considerable progress was made and
further meetings will be held to complete the work.
Draft Convention on Private International Law
11.29. The committee of experts on the harmonising
of rules of private international law held plenary meet-
ings in Brussels in November 1973 and in Copenhagen
in April/May 1974. These meetings considered a ques-
tionnaire received from the Council's Social Questions
group concerning a draft Regulation relating to conflist
of law rules governing labour relations within the Com-
munity and its impact upon similar provisions con-
tained in the draft private international law Convention
on the law applicable to contractual and non-contrac-
tual obligations.
11.30. A subcommittee on movable property held a
meeting on 13-15 February 1974 to consider :
(a) a questionnaire concerning conflict rules relating to
contract and tort which had been circulated to
member governments of the Hague Permanent
Conference on Private International Law; and
(b) The Commission draft Directive on the recognition
of securities on movables without dispossession and
on the retention of ownership upon the sale of
movables.
A report from the subcommittee was before the plenary
meeting of the committee of experts in Copenhagen in
April/May 1974. The legal profession and a number of
interested commercial bodies have been consulted on
the draft Directive.
Draft Directive on Guarantees
11.31. A committee of experts drawn from the Mem-
ber States of the Community is examining a draft
Directive on the harmonisation of national laws relating
to guarantees. The purpose of the draft Directive is to
achieve rules in regard to contracts of guarantee which
would apply throughout the whole Community in
order to facilitate the movement of capital which is
envisaged in Article 67 of the EEC Treaty. A meeting
of the committee of experts was held from 12 to 14
June 1974.
Draft Convention on the liability and protection of
officials of the European Communities in criminal
matters
11.32. A committee of experts consisting of delegates
from the Member States is considering what machinery
should be set up to deal with Community officials
accused of certain offences in connection with their
official duties. A group of experts from the original
Member States began work on the matter in 1962. Their
discussions were suspended for a long time because of
divergences of opinion amongst them but work recom-
menced in September 1970 and resulted in the prepara-
tion of a draft convention in 1972. The draft Conven-
tion provides for the extension of the domestic laws of
the Member States relating to certain criminal offences
to cover such offences committed by Community offi-
cials in the course of their duties. The draft is being
reconsidered following the accession of Ireland the UK
and Denmark and meetings for this purpose of experts
from the nine Member States were held in Brussels on
26-27 March 1974 and 4-5 June 1974.
Patents
11.33. At the invitation of the German Government
a diplomatic conference was held in Munich from 10
September to 5 October 1973 to adopt a European
system for granting patents. On 5 October 1973 the
nine Member States of the Community and five other
countries, viz. Greece, Liechtenstein, Norway, Sweden
and Switzerland, signed the International Convention
on the European Patent.
11.34. The Convention provides for the obtaining of
a European patent, which would have the same vali-
dity and effect in designated contracting States as natio-
nal patents, by means of a single application and one
grant procedure. The Convention provides for a Euro-
pean Patent Organisation comprising a European
patent will be filed with the European Patent Office
will be responsible for operating the European system
for the grant of patents. Applications for a European
patent will be field with the European Patent Office
which will be established in Munich.
11.35. A draft Convention on the European Patent
for the Common Market which was prepared early in
1973 was scheduled for consideration and adoption at
a final conference to be held in Luxembourg from 6 to
28 May 1974. It was the intention that the draft
Convention would be initialled at the end of the confer-
ence and be signed for the Council in June 1974. How-
ever, a request by the UK Government for the post-
ponement of the conference was granted by COREPER
in April 1974. The reason given by the UK Government
for this request is that it requires time to undertake a
thorough examination of matters relating to the Euro-
pean Patent for the Common Market.
Harmonisation of Penal Law—Economic Penal Law
11.36. In June 1961 the Council decided to study
the problems posed in relation to the prevention and
punishment of breaches of Community Regulations,
Directives and Decisions, in particular whether the in-
equality of penalties imposed in different Member
States for breaches of Community provisions would tend
to hinder the full implementation of these provisions
throughout the Community. A draft Instrument on
economic penal law in the Community prepared by a
sub-group of experts was considered at a meeting of the
plenary working group at Brussels on 6-7 March 1974.
After a discussion on the terms and scope of the instru-
ment the draft was referred back to the sub-group for
further study. This work is currently in progress.
Council of Ministers for Justice
11.37. The first meeting of the Council at which
Member States were represented by the Ministers for
Justice was held in Luxembourg on 3 June 1971. The
Government of the Federal Republic of Germany pro-
posed in February 1974 that a second Council of
Ministers for Justice should be held in the second half
of 1974 under the French presidency of the Council.
An
ad hoc
working group comprising representatives of
all the Member States was set up to prepare for the
meeting. The working group met in Brussels on 11
March, 8 April and 6 May 1974 and further meetings
will be held as necessary to complete the preparations
for the Council meeting.
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