European Parliament Workshop on Brussels I Reform
A session of the Committee of Legal Affairs on the Brussels I Reform took place today and lasted a bit more than an hour.
Speakers included A. Layton, A. Dickinson, I. Pretelli, F. Horn and A Nuyts.
The video of the meeting is available here.
UPDATE: The original workshop should be rescheduled, and the papers made available on the site of the Parliament.
Seeing this livestream, I’m puzzeled. I was also at Brussels, but was informed that the event would not take place. Thus, I rearranged my travelling back to Germany. My friend and colleague T. Pfeiffer, a co-author of the Heidelberg Report, was at the same time in the building, but not informed about the hearing. I’m wondering how this “hearing” could proceed in this way. As far as I could see, there was no substantial audience of the Parliament’s Committee in the room.
For the sake of completeness, I would like to urge the organisers to put at least the written submissions of the other experts at this website and at the pertinent site of the EU-Parliament.
As far as the presentation was concernde, this morning was not a good event for European democracy and lawmaking,
Sorry for this remark (but from a principal point of view)
Burkhard Hess
Burkhard,
I was surprised not to see you or Thomas (or other announced speakers such as Horatia Muir Watt) in the video, and was wondering whether I was missing something.
Quite clearly, something went completely wrong.
Let us hope that the reason is only the very poor organization of the European Parliament and /or its Committee of Legal Affairs.
Gilles
The event has indeed been cancelled (because of electrical problems caused by a fire the day before), but as some uninformed participants started to gather in the room the organizers decided at the last moment to hold an informal discussion. I understand that the formal workshop will be rescheduled for a later date.
And indeed it will most probably be set already for 4 October. The circumstances of the meeting were most unfortunate. and it will be good for the subject matter at stake to hold the full workshop in front of a larger auditorium and not just an informal meeting.
(btw: all the written statements including the speakers that were not present were available at the meeting in print and will – to my knowledge – be published in electronic form on the website – hopefully soon)
Florian Horn