Brussels, 04/08/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 4 August, the European Commission denied that the review of the 1995 directive on personal data protection would be delayed. A Commission spokesperson confirmed that, “the European Commission will present its plans before the end of this year, as well as a legislative proposal in the next 10 months”. Nonetheless, the national Information and Freedoms Commission (CNIL, France) indicated on Monday 2 August in a press release that, together with its European counterparts, it had decided to postpone the initial Commission calendar, which was judged to be “unrealistic”, in order to carry out a review and detailed examination of this founding text. The press release underlined that, “the CNIL and its European counterparts have encouraged the Commission to review its very busy agenda. The latter has therefore announced that it will only publish a simple communication in November and that the presentation of a draft review of the directive will be postponed until the second half of 2011”. The Commission does not intend to have its agenda dictated to it because the review of directive 95/46/EC remains both a strategic priority of the Commission and of the Commissioner for justice, Viviane Reding. The spokesman pointed out that, “before she took up the job, Ms Reding had clearly explained to the European Parliament that review of the acquis own data protection had been planned for the first part of the mandate, between 2010 2012”. The Commission spokesperson also explained that the Commission was already working on the matter. The Commissioner met members of the Article 29 Group on 14 July, which is in charge of data protection in Europe. The Commission is also currently analysing 160 contributions it had received as part of the public consultation launched last July on the future legal framework for data protection. Commissioner Reding also intends to change the directive in a way that goes further than a simple amendment, explained the spokesperson. The new instrument would integrate 2008 framework-decision elements on data protection processed within the field of police and legal co-operation, in an effort to make the provisions binding. The future legislation could take the shape of a regulation or directive. (B.C.)