Brussels, 03/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding will travel to Washington on 8-9 December to kick off the negations with the United States on a personal information protection agreement. In a qualified majority vote on Friday, EU justice ministers gave the commissioner a negotiating mandate, but the United Kingdom voted against. Reding said she now had a strong negotiating mandate on a par with the US to defend the personal information of Europeans. Ministers decided to leave until a later date the decision about whether the agreement should include bilateral agreements to be signed in this connection in the future (Sweden and Germany want them included, but the UK, the Czech Republic, France and Estonia do not). Likewise for the question of whether the overall agreement should be mixed, as desired by the UK, and the UK's call of the agreement to require signature from the member states in the event of a compromise. (B.C./transl.fl)