European Union Optional Contract Law Initiative to Facilitate Cross-Border Transactions: European Commission Welcomes EU Parliament Committee Support Vote

EUROPA - Press Releases - European Commission welcomes European Parliament committee vote in support of an optional European Contract Law

"The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee approved a report today that favours the elaboration of an optional European Contract Law. This is in response to several options put forward by the European Commission for a more coherent approach to contract law (see IP/10/872). Such a measure could be chosen freely by consumers and businesses in their contractual relations. This optional instrument would be an alternative to the existing national contract laws and would be available in all languages. It could apply in cross-border contracts only, or in both cross-border and domestic contracts. It would have to guarantee a high level of consumer protection and legal certainty throughout the life cycle of a contract. In today’s vote, the Legal Affairs Committee adopted an own-initiative report by Diana Wallis.

Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner, said: 'It is good news for Europe's Single Market that the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee favours work towards an optional European Contract Law to facilitate cross-border transactions, notably for small- and medium-sized enterprises and consumers. The Commission will take the European Parliament's views strongly into account in its further preparation of the European Contract Law initiative. We plan a first initiative on European Contract Law for the Polish Presidency.'

Read the rest here.

Controversial Mosel Bridge in EU "Wine Country" Paused for Coalition Negotiations Between the Social Democratic Party and the Environmentalist Green Party

On March 3, 2011, prior to elections in the German Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) we posted at LawPundit about the highly controversial 158-meter high and over 1-mile long bridge planned to be built over the Moselle (Mosel) River right through the center of one of the world's leading wine-producing regions -- see Winemakers Unite to Oppose the Building of an Ugly and Unnecessary Bridge over the Moselle River in Germany's Famed Mosel Wine Region. But is it TOO LATE?

We are glad to report that the fantastic result of that election is that the building of the monstrous planned Moselle bridge has been paused for post-election coalition negotiations, for the reason that a major aspect of the political platform of the Alliance '90/The Greens, who emerged from the elections as the political party of the hour, was strong opposition to the bridge.

To get some idea of the gigantic size of this bridge, 158 meters is the same height as the Telecommunications Tower, Torre de las Telecomunicacione viz. Torre Antel (Antel Tower) in Montevideo, Uruguay, the tallest building in the country!

Full resolution‎ (480 × 640 pixels, file size: 64 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) 
Torre de las Telecomunicaciones, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Foto realizada y subida por Federico Corral (aka Shant)

For the planned Mosel Bridge, just extend that height one mile horizonally and add 25,000 tons of steel over one of the most picturesque rural wine-producing areas in the world and you know that some misguided planners' delusions of grandeur have reached their limit.

Here, for comparison, from the German Wikipedia website (Hochmoselübergang) are "before" and "after" images of what the countryside looks like now and what it will look like if this monstrous bridge is built as planned. These gigantic pillars for the Mosel are essentially equivalent to putting a dozen skyscrapers in the middle of French Bordeaux. Would France ever even think of doing such a crazy thing?







The elections are now over and the German environmental party, Alliance '90/The Greens, surely in part also because of the tragic tsunami wave in Japan and the subsequent nuclear catastrophe which has followed, made huge gains in Baden-Wuerttemberg, ousting Chancellor Merkel's CDU party.

Merkel's ruling party was absolutely destroyed there by stupidly supporting the planned demolition in Stuttgart of the Hauptbahnhof, the main train station, a highly regarded cultural and architectural monument, in order to make way for a planned underground station. Police used water cannons to try to remove protestors, inciting even more opposition, and the ruling CDU party did not get the message that they were on the wrong side of the issue. They got what they deserved in the election -- they were ousted. As now written at Deutsche Welle:

"German rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) has announced a work freeze on a contentious rail project centered on the southwestern city of Stuttgart following recent state elections."

Baden-Wuerttemberg with its capital Stuttgart is the 3rd largest State in Germany, and corporate headquarters for inter alia Daimler [Mercedes-Benz], Porsche, Robert Bosch, Carl Zeiss, and SAP -- the largest software firm in Europe. Faced with the spectre of the CDU getting thrown out of government in that corporate-oriented State for being -- clearly -- on the wrong side of an important environmental issue, warning signs have gone up for politicians all over Germany.

In the Rhineland-Palatinate, the Alliance '90/The Greens picked up substantial environmental votes, enough votes to go from being completely out of the government previously, to now having to be included in coalition negotiations with the Social Democratic Party (SPD). That SPD, just as the minority Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Palatinate, has up-to-now supported the bridge for economic reasons. What economic reasons? The bridge is being financed 80% by federal financing and those Euros for the Palatinate constitute the blood money for the otherwise unnecessary bridge.

Thankfully, the German voters are paying attention. In the March 27, 2011 Rhineland-Palatinate elections, this time it was the SPD that lost its ruling majority in the State, gaining 10% fewer votes than in 2006 in the Palatinate. It is a strong political message when Germany's two largest political parties are getting beaten badly because of environmental issues.

By contrast, the Alliance '90/The Greens surged from 4.6% in 2006 in the Palatinate-- not even reaching the 5% government-participation threshold -- to achieving a triumphal 15.4% in 2011, putting them solidly in the government and reaching a voting level they are unlikely to lose anywhere in the near future.

The environmental ramifications of the Fukushima nuclear accidents will be with us for years. MORE environmental protection, rather than less, will be the hallmark of successful politicians.

For Palatinate Minister-President Kurt Beck and the SPD to stay in power and to continue to govern, something has to give in the coalition negotiations, and it is going to be the building of the totally unnecessary monstrous bridge over the Moselle River. That will have to go.

Representatives from the CDU have been quoted post-election as saying that the bridge will be built anyway because of ca. €330 million contracts that have been granted viz. planned for construction of the project.

We are not sure about that.

Those contracts are no hindrance to stopping the bridge.

There is of course no reason to cost people their jobs just because you end an unnecessary construction project. Those same construction firms can be put to work for the same money repairing the roads, bridges and highways that ALREADY EXIST and in part are in a dilapidated state of repair. There is plenty of work to be done.

Or, in a worst case scenario, one could maintain the road-building as planned, but replace the monstrous bridge with a normal "human-size" bridge as already found on the Mosel elsewhere and as suited to a wine-growing and tourist area.

Most people on the Mosel could probably live with that.

Roads and bridges over rivers are necessary in moderation -- but not the monstrous bridge planned for the Mosel. That is NOT necessary.

If the politicians in Berlin still want this monstrous bridge built as a job generator (Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahme), we suggest they try to put it in the middle of Berlin on the Ku'damm (Kurfürstendamm) and see what happens. That would be no different than putting that same bridge here on the Mosel.

EU Libel & Defamation Law: Google Rightly Loses Case in Italy for Libelous Search Suggestions Generated by Autocompletion Computer Algorithms

Sometimes we disagree with Italy, and sometimes we agree.

This time, WE AGREE as Google loses defamation case in Italy.

Google's autocompletion feature -- run by computer algorithms --
led to cases of libelous search suggestions, by computer.

Obviously, that is intolerable.
We are no friends of libel.

Italy is correct in saying that libel is libel, computer-written or otherwise.

E-Privacy Directive Regulations Bring New Cookie Rules to the European Union Effective May 25, 2011

BBC News reports in New net rules set to make cookies crumble, that:

"From 25 May, European laws dictate that 'explicit consent' must be gathered from web users who are being tracked via text files called 'cookies'....

The changes are demanded by the European e-Privacy directive which comes into force in the UK in late May."

As written by Miya Knights at EWeekEurope.co.uk in ICO Warns On New EU Cookie Rules:

"The new law, which will come into force on 25 May 2011, is an amendment to the EU’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive [The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003] designed to keep pace with the constant evolution of online fraud."

A Discriminatory and Flawed Legal Decision by the European Court of Justice ECJ on Drug Tourism and Vice Control in the European Union EU: Case C-137/09

The control of human vices such as prostitution and drug abuse are major problems for legal systems because they often involve the border-line confrontation of legal bodies and law enforcement agencies with "normal" citizens whose behavior has run contrary to the law statutes in matters that often involve legal and moral principles about which there is a great deal of differing opinion in the populace.

Few areas of law involve so much "bad law" as the perplexing legal issues posed by "substance abuse", whether this be alcohol or marijuana. (We have posted before at LawPundit about the widespread failings of legal systems to deal intelligently with drug abuse problems in society.)

A case in point is recently found at the EU Law Blog
in the posting Cannabis, Coffee Shops, Non-Discrimination and Public Policy: Case C-137/09
regarding Case C-137/09 Marc Michel Josemans v. Burgemeester van Maastricht
of the European Court of Justice (ECJ),

a terrible legal decision which sets back about 2000 years the legal advances made in Europe since Law in Early Rome and the Republic, by which citizens of Rome in that Empire had one set of rights and foreigners another set of rights.

Not only has the modern developing concept of ius gentium -- the "law of nations" by which all people are subject to the same laws, citizens, non-citizens and foreigners alike -- been trampled under foot by the ECJ in Case C-137/09, but the entire principle upon which the European Union is based has been tossed aside.

The principle foundation of the the European Union and a Single Internal EU Market is EQUALITY of the Member States of the EU and its citizens, especially in economic matters. The "four freedoms" in the European Union provide:

"The core of European Union economic and social policy is summed up under the idea of the four freedoms - free movement of goods, capital, services and persons. Sometimes, they are also counted up as five freedoms, namely the free movement of goods, capital, services, workers and the freedom of establishment, but the difference is merely in denomination, they both refer to the same areas of substantive law."

To permit the sale of cannabis in coffee-shops in Maastricht to citizens of the Netherlands but to prohibit such sale to other EU citizens or foreigners turns European Law on its head and makes a mockery of the European Union.

We are not in favor of drug tourism, by the way, and it would be better to prohibit the sale of cannabis anywhere in the EU than to permit this terrible totally discriminatory decision to remain good law.

Google with 80% of EU Market Faces Anti-Trust Problems from Competitors Alleging Abuse of Dominant Market Position

Valentina Pop at EUobserver.com reports that Google facing second EU anti-trust case "for alleged abuse of its dominant market position." Google controls 80% of the European search engine market and is accused of favoring its own sites in search results. If true, Google may have trouble winning this case.

European Court of Justice (ECJ) based on Request from the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) to Decide Legality of Second-Hand Software Sales as regards Copyright Licensing and Infringement

OUT-LAW News from Pinsent Masons LLP reports that:

ECJ asked to rule on re-sale of software licences

The German Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice, the highest court in Germany for non-constitutional questions) has requested the highest court in the European Union, the ECJ (European Court of Justice) to clarify the legality of the sale of second-hand software in a case involving second-hand Oracle software sold online by third parties.