European Commission Press Release PRE 057/07 (Presse) (Brussels, 12 November
2007) announces that the next meeting of Research Ministers of the European
Union will take place in Brussels on 22 and 23 November 2007.
The Press Release says that the meeting will be chaired by the Portugese
Ministers for Economy and Innovation, and for Science Technology and Higher
Education (Mr Manuel Pinho and Mr Mariano Gago).
And it announces that one of the agenda items will be "Adoption Of Council
Conclusions, Scientific information in the digital age: access,
dissemination and preservation".
The key document for this agenda item is the European Commission's
"Communication on Scientific information in the digital age: ..." of
February 2007 [1].
The Commission's "Communication" concludes <<The Commission invites the
European Parliament and Council to debate the relevant issues on the basis
of the present Communication.>>
As of today (2007-11-13 08:04), the European Parliament is still only at the
<<Preparatory phase>> [2]
But the Press Release shows that European Council of Ministers has done its
work and is ready to adopt some Conclusions. These Conclusions will have
been prepared and agreed by a confidential working party of civil servants
and advisers from all 27 Member States of the EU. What are those Conclusions
likely to be? Undoubtedly there are readers of this list who were on that
that working party, and who could tell us. But the only information in the
public domain is that Portugal firmly supports the principle of Open Access [3].
So we have to wait for the press conference at the end of the session. And
if you do not have a Brussels Press Pass you can follow the press
conferences live at [4]. Or just wait for the next Press Release, probably
on the 26 November.
N.Miradon
[1]
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/doc/scientific_information/communication_en.pdf
[2]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/FindByDocnum.do?lang=en&docnum=COM/2007/0056
[3]
https://arl.org/lists/sparc-oaforum/Message/3492.html
[4]
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/videostreaming
Received on Tue Nov 13 2007 - 10:32:16 GMT