German Bundestag,
Plenarprotokoll 19/195, p. 24664.
Frau President.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Thus, Frau colleague Dr. Scheer, you now have really very
much startled me; for to be quite honest: That was not us. We ourselves have
not had recourse to the Constitutional Court. That was a constitutional
complaint. When the law was passed, at which time it was first ratified, we
were not even in the Bundestag. Just the opposite: At the last debate on the
ratification, we had moved to repeal the law which you had ratified so as to
spare the Bundestag this disgrace which was then entered into.
For that it has come to this, you quite alone are
responsible. Had you listened to us, all of this would have turned out with
more moderation.
Nina Scheer (SPD): Then you stand behind the complaint.
Now it should be supposed that one learns to fear the flame. Yet apparently that has not happened here; undeterred, it will be continued. So far, there has still been no hearing on this matter in the Committee for Legal Affairs. We in the Committee for Legal Affairs hold all possible hearings on, for example – how is it called? – containers for foodstuffs, yet not on highly complex questions such as this. Since the beginning of the project “European Court of Patents”, considerable attacks against it have been conducted in the literature: EU legal incompatibility, unconstitutionality, it shall be completely superfluous, so it is called, antipathetic to the Mittelstand. All of these attacks from people who are to be taken seriously ought to have for once been listened to in the Legal Affairs Committee so as to reach an informed decision.That has not happened. Yet last Wednesday, all delegations
have rejected our motion in the Legal Affairs Committee for the holding of an
experts hearing.
In addition, owing to Brexit, we have a fully new state of
affairs. According to my information, there were two countries the courts of which,
as per previous practice, had something of a leading function for all the
others. Those were the German and English patent courts. Owing to Brexit, the
English are now gone; thus now it is the German courts which could engage in a
leading function. Where is the problem? On which account must a European court
still be installed?
Yet even if reasons are sought and found to do that, there
is still another problem that results from Brexit: One seat of this patent court
should be in Great Britain. That has been omitted. It is a German interest to
now retrieve it for Munich; yet there are no arrangements whatsoever that are
not long since in the bag. And now we here wish to ratify that and thereby
surrender out of hand the single trump card we still hold to safely retrieve
the thing for Munich. Does Söder
Markus know how Bavarian interests are being dealt with here? I think for once,
Bavarian members may now do good today in not voting for this law.
Then the Federal government would still have an opportunity to repair this. We will not vote for it. To the others, I wish a happy trip over the Bodensee – eyes firmly shut, as you gladly do it [Augen zu und durch, wie Sie es gerne machen].
Thanks for the attention.
[trans: tem]
