World Intellectual Property Review, "EPO: The fight for independence"
"Battistelli has tried to increase the independence of the boards without actually amending theEPC itself, but his efforts are "not satisfactory. [...] Increasing the board’s independence without amending the EPC depends on Battistelli delegating the powers he has to the boards of appeal, but how permanent would that delegation be? If he can take the decision to delegate powers he can also undo it, so it is not the best guarantee. [...] with the EPC in its current form, there is an argument that the EPO is not compliant withthe TRIPS Agreement.[...] TRIPS says that you need to have two instances of appeal. But if the boards of appeal at the EPO are merely an administrative function run by the president you could say there is in fact no level of appeal at all."
A copy of the article can be found here.