• silicon.com
• Management
• CIO Insights

By Felicity Ussher, 23 July 1999 00:20

NEWS The European Parliament's (EP) legal affairs committee has lost almost all its IT expertise following its annual shake-up, announced yesterday. The 24 new members to join the committee - which provides the EP with expertise on ecommerce and copyright legislation - include dancer, Raina Echerer, gamekeeper, Veronique Mathier and industrial designer, Toine Manders. They replace UK MEPs, Ian White and Christine Oddy, who lost their seats in parliamentary elections this summer. Both campaigned on IT issues, with Oddy's report forming the basis for the ecommerce directive currently going through the parliament. Experts have claimed the IT industry needs European representatives who understand both business and IT. But a committee spokesman admitted: "There is nobody that really strikes me as having IT expertise now. Christine Oddy was quite knowledgeable in this field." The new committee includes a number of lawyers, but their experience lies in other areas. Labour MEP, Claude Moraes, specialises in human rights, while the Liberal Democrats' Diana Wallis and Scottish National Party's Donald MacCormick are academics. The main industry representatives among the new recruits are Conservative MEP, Malcolm Harbour, who worked for Rover, and Doorn Lambert, who headed up legal affairs at Dutch employers' organisation, VNO. The rest are career politicians and non-specialists transferring from other committees. German socialist, Willi Rothley, is the last remaining lawyer with IT expertise on the committee. But he lost industry favour earlier this year by proposing that Internet service providers take responsibility for online content.