WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1616/98 by Elly PLOOIJ-VAN GORSEL to the Commission. Discriminatory nature for EU citizens of the indivisibility of Belgian tax
18. 1. 1999 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 13/53 genetic resources and are the key to improving crops throughout the world, particularly in the developing countries. The agreement concluded between the CGIAR and the FAO includes an undertaking not to register this genetic information as intellectual property. The call for a moratorium on seed patents is a result of the complaint made by the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) in January 1998 following the ultimately unsuccessful attempt by Australian research institutes to claim intellectual property rights over a variety of chickpea covered by CGIAR-FAO agreements. Further investigation revealed that intellectual property applica- tions had been lodged for other protected varieties. Does the Commission know whether any institution or body belonging to the European Union has applied for intellectual property rights over any variety of seed deposited at the research centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)? If so, will it say which bodies and what species are involved? Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission (2 July 1998) The Commission is not aware of any institution or organisation in the Community that has applied for intellectual property rights on plant material received from the Consultative group on international agricultural research (CGIAR) centres. The CGIAR centres hold genetic resources in trust for the international community. As trustees of genetic resources the CGIAR centres recognise their responsibility to exercise due care and diligence in conserving the material for the use of present and future generations and make it readily available for use for the public good. In the case of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture this is implemented through agreement with the Food and agriculture organization (FAO) and the recipient has no right to apply for, or obtain, intellectual property rights on the germplasm or related information. (1999/C 13/076) WRITTEN QUESTION E-1616/98 by Elly Plooij-van Gorsel (ELDR) to the Commission (27 May 1998) Subject: Discriminatory nature for EU citizens of the indivisibility of Belgian tax Is the Commission aware that the West Flanders provincial government levies a general provincial tax, one condition of which is that the tax is indivisible and payable in respect of the whole year? Does the Commission consider it fair that a Netherlands citizen resident in this province on 1 January 1998 who moved to the Netherlands on 4 February should nevertheless be liable for tax in respect of the whole of 1998? Does the Commission agree that this constitutes discrimination against non-Belgian EU citizens and is an obstacle to the free movement of persons within the European Union? If so, what does the Commission propose to do about it? Answer given by Mr Monti on behalf of the Commission (4 August 1998) For want of details regarding the nature of the tax levied by the Belgian province of West Flanders that would allow it to carry out the necessary research, the Commission is unfortunately unable at this stage to answer in full the Honourable Memberís question. The Commission would ask the Honourable Member to provide further particulars so that it can give a more detailed answer