THIS WEEK IS Battistelli's very last week and it's a very busy one (I've taken the whole week off work). An unfinished building will bear Battistelli's name (funny story behind that) and we shall be writing about that soon. Today (this afternoon) ILO will deliver many decisions on staff appeals and tomorrow the administered (by Battistelli) council of the EPO will meet again. Last night we saw a comment to the effect that the EPO stopped hiring (even people whose applications were successful), which merely reinforces suspicions of upcoming layoffs.
"...the spirit may remain largely the same, bar the annoying photo ops of the lunatic in chief."We already published two articles about ILO-AT yesterday [1, 2]; it's expected that fired staff representatives (from SUEPO) will hear their fate a week before António Campinos takes over. Considering what happened to Judge Corcoran (even after ILO had ruled in his favour several times), it doesn't look too promising. At no point did Campinos insinuate that he would reintegrate such people into the workforce. "The Tribunal's judgments will be announced in public on Tuesday, 26 June 2018 at 3pm at the ILO (Room IX, floor R2)," ILO says. What would happen tomorrow if ILO ordered the reintegration of SUEPO leaders?
Some EPO employees try to stay optimistic and positive, foreseeing perhaps a turnaround. But we're just not seeing it the same way and readers who write to us don't see it that way, either. Yes, Battistelli's departure is imminent, but Campinos -- according to insiders we heard from -- has no intention of sacking anyone from Team Battistelli. So the spirit may remain largely the same, bar the annoying photo ops of the lunatic in chief.
As somebody put it yesterday:
My career as patent attorney goes back to the early 1970’s. I remember the pioneering days at the EPO and the building of an organisation that was the world-wide benchmark for patent administration and law. Pure exhilaration! A rare example of Europe doing something better than countries elsewhere in the world.
And I have seen how, in the last few years,how it has all come to be trashed.
But who exactly is to blame, for this wanton and wilful destruction? Readers, that’s always the problem, isn’t it.
Take the disgraceful gutter press in England? Their defence is that they have no alternative. To survive, they must print garbage, because that’s what readers demand, what creates a market for their papers. Now, who creates the gullible readers that demand the myths and untruths the papers print? Must we blame the schoolteachers?
Likewise, what sort of organisation appoints as its President the complacent and self-satisfied man that this month moves out of his self-commissioned presidential palace on the banks of the Isar? Is BB’s [Battistelli's] defence that he was merely delivering the wishes of his employer, the EPO’s owners, its Administrative Council? Must we place the blame at the AC’s door?
When we see how the AC relates to the incoming new EPO President, we shall be able to reach a better-informed opinion, who to blame for the shameful trashing of the EPO.
Campinos and Battistelli in 2011