Outcomes of 149^th Administrative Council's meeting at the EPO

Battistelli is losing (after a coup) and the EPO's staff regains control of the Office which they work for, based on the outcomes of the 149^th Administrative Council's meeting at the EPO. What does that mean? It means a lot. Last week we covered the outcome based on hearsay from a lot of sources and finally we have the above leak, which helps reinforce what we said at the time. Also, via IP Watch's Twitter feed we have just found today's article that's titled "EPO Staff Welcome Withdrawal Of Unpopular Disciplinary Proposals". To quote from this article:

Pressure from staff and now from members of the European Patent Office governing body has forced EPO President Benoît Battistelli to withdraw controversial proposals for disciplining and investigating employees, the Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) said on 17 October. The action was welcomed but the situation is far from resolved, staff members say.

The Administrative Council (AC) of the EPO, made of members of the office’s member states, met on 12-13 October. “This session did not go exactly according to plan,” SUEPO said in an update on the latest developments. Many delegations “pointed at indicators of the existing social problems such as the lack of trust in EPO management, the perceived lack of respect for staff, the high level of dissatisfaction among staff,” the union said.

The EPO press office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

[...]

Staff representatives at the AC told governments they welcomed the change of tone, according to the source. They said that if ongoing disciplinary actions are stayed, SUEPO would consider suspending its strikes until December, the source added.

In its statement on outcomes of the AC meeting, the EPO said only that “two proposals for reform of the investigation and disciplinary procedures will be examined at a later stage.”

The union has been holding demonstrations to demand fundamental rights, the latest of which took placed in Munich and The Hague on 13 October. Each attracted around 600 staff members, it said.

Nothing is solved yet, because AC members appear on the one hand to be making better efforts to protect staff from management but on the other hand have extended the terms of all current vice-presidents, said the source. Council members apparently don’t intend to fire Battistelli, whose term ends on 30 June 2018, said the source.