Brussels, 20/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - EU interior and justice ministers will meet in Nicosia for an informal meeting on Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 July 2012, where they will discuss developments in Syria and the arrival of Syrian asylum-seekers in the EU and neighbouring countries. They will also discuss a draft regulation unveiled in January by Viviane Reding to update EU data protection rules. Ministers will consider cybercrime and the draft Commission directive on confiscating and freezing the assets of criminal gangs.
The question of the Schengen Area and the accession of Bulgaria and Romania (which ministers are due to discuss in September) may come up at this meeting because, on 18 July 2012, the European Commission published the eagerly awaited progress reports on justice and anti-corruption in Bulgaria and Romania, which were rather negative, particularly for Romania, currently experiencing a spat between its prime minister and president, Ponta and Basescu. Most member states, particularly the Netherlands, are demanding positive results in terms of improving the legal system and dealing with corruption before they will let the two countries join Schengen. One source said he couldn't see how it could be possible to avoid talking about Schengen and the two reports because it is a hot potato right now.
On Monday, the ministers will examine the 2011 report by the European asylum support office based in Valetta, Malta, on asylum applications in the EU and countries of origin, Afghanistan being the country with the highest number of asylum-seekers. The rest of the meeting that day will cover tangible progress expected in the near future on the draft regulation on data protection (replacing the 1995 data protection directive, which will be discussed on Tuesday, according to the Commission). Discussions will focus on whether the public sector should be exempt from the new rules, which include the right to have information removed or ignored and the requirement for explicit consent to be given before information given online can be used. The draft regulation unveiled by Reding in January lays down a raft of duties for private companies, to which exemptions are sometimes needed by the civil service (storing personal information on electoral rolls, for example) or public services that need to keep personal information. Ministers are expected to decide on whether the state should be given full or partial exemption.
The ministers are unlikely to discuss the other item of draft legislation unveiled by Reding in January, namely the draft directive on personal information for police investigations and legal cases, which will replace the 977/2008/JHA Framework Decision. One source says that very little was done in recent months because the Danish Presidency was trying to sink the directive and therefore cancelled a number of working meetings without explanation. The Cypriot Presidency seems more open to the idea of reform but is unlikely to be able to organise meetings until September because technical work on the question has not advanced very far yet. The directive sets out how member states' law enforcement agencies and legal systems should deal with suspects' personal information. This is the area of the reform which is of most interest to the United States, although the directive will not affect the international PNR deals.
Other issues on the agenda include recovery of cross-border debt via a draft regulation unveiled by the Commission in July 2011. The regulation includes a new EU sequestration rule for bank accounts whereby creditors will be able to recover a debt from the debtor's bank. The Commission says the regulation may help companies recover some €600 million of bad debts each year. The ministers in Cyprus are expected to talk about how the rule would work in practice. (SP/transl.fl)