THE EPO is a rotten institution where Željko Topić, Benoît Battistelli and other cronies of theirs basically oust everyone who does not agree with them or is tasked with a process of regulation/oversight. It's more than an attitude issue. Not to be overly dramatic here, there should be toppling, and the sooner the better. The leadership is the problem, not its many critics. See what we wrote about Battistelli over the past few months. We attached sensitive documents to prove or at least strongly support our allegations. Battistelli's deputy is even worse than Battistelli and he faces many criminal charges which he is eager to hide from his colleagues. What we have currently at the EPO is "Balkan standards" (to borrow a phrase from a respected person who is familiar with the culprits). This phrase alludes to corruption and it mostly relates to Željko Topić's actions, not just his boss and colleague, the full-of-himself "President" Battistelli (some law/patent blogs sarcastically comment on the capitalisation of the word "President", which he seemingly deems his new first name).
Battistelli and Topić are out of control. There are numerous complaints and calls for investigation for they reign like tyrants and they are hardly even hiding it. They are wasteful (wasting European tax money) and subservient to interests other than Europe's. No wonder their staff hates them with a passion, let aside those who have to interact with them.
Techrights is now in possession of recordings where Mr. Battistelli gets grilled by delegations (people representing part of the European Union). Techrights has studied the recordings and produced this Ogg-formatted file, which most Web browsers may automatically embed below (if not, download and playback should be possible).
"Those who surround him join in the response squad, suppressing the delegations or preventing them from receiving any real answers."Apart from the megalomaniac "that's why I am president" there is a lot of stuff worth listening to, especially the nature of the concerns raised by the delegations and the response (of lack thereof) from Battistelli, EPO President, to these. Those who surround him join in the response squad, suppressing the delegations or preventing them from receiving any real answers. The audio is full of examples of this. Just because there are 'too many' issues doesn't mean that Battistelli is obliged to address none.
"At the beginning," tells us one who listened to the recording, "one can hear an intervention of the Slovenian delegation. It says that the EPO is not a company on the stock exchange and should focus on quality and careful handling of human resources. Battistelli insults and threatens the delegation. Then, Battistelli says that the career system will make "hundreds of millions for the office" and that "the Office should not care about FR, UK and DE law" but rather think only in terms of "what is good for the office"."
Yes, this is typical Battistelli. He is very aggressive against critics and where possible he sacks or at the very least threatens them. There is a pattern here. In future parts of this long series (guaranteed to go on well into 2015) we will show more of Battistelli's abusive behaviour, Topić's allegedly criminal scandals, and output from the internal uprise (there are very strong sentiments within the EPO against Topić and Battistelli and one of them is internally compared to Vladimir Putin). ⬆