Bonum Certa Men Certa

The General Consultative Committee of the EPO Exposes a Disaster and a Lack of Genuine Dialogue

Video download link | md5sum 0fb9bcc5d05ac5516517f1c160154f6e GCC Report as Dialogue Breaks Down Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: The General Consultative Committee (GCC) at the EPO deals with unlawful proposals from António Campinos (he's happy to violate laws, constitutions, protocols, conventions, just like Benoît Battistelli did) and once again the abuses by managers is covered up; it's as if the Office is run by unaccountable gangsters who arrogantly curse at everyone whilst insisting they're the nicest people ever

THE video above deals with this short report [PDF] about a recent meeting at the EPO, whose agenda is better illuminated in several [PDF] key [PDF] opinion documents [PDF] from staff representatives. They show to their constituents that the Office misuses politics to justify cracking down on staff or plundering the staff.



"They show to their constituents that the Office misuses politics to justify cracking down on staff or plundering the staff."One of these opinion documents is very long, but the summary speaks of the Unitary Patent, basically a misguided longtime effort to introduce a kangaroo court (UPC) to authorise European software patents etc. under the guise of "unity" or "unification".

Here is the letter sent to staff:

Report on the GCC meeting of 26 April 2022: The re-election package

Dear colleagues,

As already explained in an earlier publication, the GCC meeting of 26 April was the worst ever experienced under Mr Campinos’ leadership. The CSC members of the GCC requested that the consultation on the agenda items be repeated; and that the official recording of the discussions in the meeting be made available so that staff become aware of how the President chaired this statutory meeting.

On 29 April, the President informed the CSC members that “there are no reasons to repeat the GCC meeting” and he did not address the question of the recording. The reasoned opinions on the documents on the agenda are thus given under protest:
  • Opinion on the document on Professional Mobility (GCC/DOC 06/2022)


  • Opinion on the directive on an in-house supervisory committee for SSP investment management and administration (GCC/DOC 07/2022)


  • Opinion on the decision (GCC/DOC 08/2022) of the President on the entry into force of Circular No. 419 (New Ways of Working).


Undoubtedly, the first document (Professional Mobility) is the one that would most profoundly change the way official EPO duties are assigned to employees, be they EPO staff or national civil servants. In best Battistelli tradition, Mr Campinos has prepared a “package” to be submitted to the Budget and Finance Committee in May 2022 and to the Administrative Council for approval in June 2022 (see CA/32/22 and CA/32/22 Add.1), with various measures more or less closely related to mobility. His re-election will be discussed in the same meeting.

You can read the full report, including some salient points in the “mobility package” here.


Notice the arrogance of Campinos, having cursed at the staff and then rejected transparency (in order to cover up what he had done). He "informed the CSC members that “there are no reasons to repeat the GCC meeting” and he did not address the question of the recording." My personal opinion is that, for their own protection, staff should bring recording devices of their own. They might even wish to disclosure that in advance, citing this example where the Office maintains a monopoly on the recordings -- just like many Police Departments (PDs) in the United States -- so that those recordings can only ever be used as a weapon against the vulnerable/unarmed citizens.

Recent Techrights' Posts

More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
 
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025