CNET News.com reports that the chief executives of Philips, Nokia, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Sony-Ericsson, Matsushita Electronic Industrial, Sony and Imation sent a letter to Barroso on Monday evening. They asked him for a meeting to explain, why the EU has delayed the reforms of EU copyright tax legislation.

Initially it had been planned to scrap extra levies on electronic equipment capable of storing and recording multimedia information. However, it looks like that after lobbying by France and probably by big names in the creative business, such as the French Bertrand Tavernier and Pedro Almodovar (Spain), copyright tax legislation reform was halted.

Tavernier and Almodovar had argued that the levy, totalling 560 million euros "was key to funding productions and provided money to governments", as CNET News reports.