Brussels, 06/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - In Luxembourg on Thursday 6 June, European justice ministers gave rather a cold reception to the Irish Presidency's compromise proposals on several key points of the reform of data protection rules. Most of the ministers indicated their refusal quite clearly to agree at this stage to Presidency's amendments, calling on the Presidency to continue its work.
More precisely, the ministers were invited to support the Presidency's efforts on the idea of “unambiguous” consent on the treatment and use of data; on the regulation's scope of application, particularly the inclusion (or not) of the European institutions; on how the regulation squared with the principles of freedom of expression and public access to documents; and on the risk-based approach (the type of activities that determine the required level of data protection). However, several delegations had already prepared the ground and anticipated this rather unenthusiastic reception, like the United Kingdom and UK Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling. In a letter on 4 June, they had already indicated to European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Viviane Reding that they did not want to move forward too quickly on this reform or precipitate any decision that could be seen as damaging to SMEs. The British representative unsurprisingly reiterated his concerns at the public debate organised by the Presidency on Thursday morning.
This position was also supported by the Netherlands, calling again on the European Commission for an impact study on the costs of the reform for SMEs. “Like the United Kingdom, we have concerns about the administrative burden. For the Dutch economy, this will represent an additional cost of €72 million and up to €1.1 billion on an annual basis”, said the Dutch representative. Nor did Germany or France want to commit further on these proposals. For Germany, much more time is needed - even though the Presidency has already organised about 30 working group meetings on this issue. German Secretary of State Ole Schröder considered it “a little early, however, to try to find general support today. We can only bring limited support”, he told the Presidency. For Berlin, improvements should be made to the notion of consent - the Commission wanted it “explicit”, Ireland changed it to “unambiguous”; to the territorial scope; to the flexibility to be given to the public sector in the framework of this regulation; and to the articulation with the principle of freedom of expression. In Germany's view, protection standards must certainly not be “watered down”. For France, the concerns are partly the same. French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira reiterated that France wants the notion of explicit consent. “Saying nothing doesn't mean saying 'yes'”, Taubira said, picking up Reding's proposals on this point, who also saw her definition of consent being rewritten by Dublin. “Unambiguous - that's not enough”, Taubira said, who also called for the application of the rules to social networks to be tackled more in this proposal. For France, as for Austria, which also put forward this argument, it must particularly be avoided for the level of data protection to turn out less than in the 1995 directive. “We understand the desire to conclude quickly (…) but we must certainly not go backwards in relation to the current level of protection”, Austria therefore warned.
The Irish compromises have not, however, raise only cautious comments. Luxembourg, Finland and Sweden supported the Presidency quite clearly. Nevertheless, Ireland's Minister for Justice Alan Shatter - whose country hosts the European headquarters of internet giants Google, Microsoft and Facebook - had to recognise at the end of the day that there was “still much to be done”. “We are also in agreement to say that it's not only big companies that are concerned”, he reassured - although the United Kingdom had a little earlier implicitly accused it of tying up rules that were appropriate for these big multinationals but worked to the detriment of SMEs. Reding nevertheless considered that, in spite of these criticisms, an agreement had more or less been found on these four chapters. “We think that these chapters are stable and will not move much any more”, said Reding's spokesperson, Mina Andreeva, and that Ireland had generally obtained the support of the other member states. Three other working group meetings will still be held under the Irish Presidency, then the matter will be passed on to Lithuania. The European Parliament remains in limbo for the moment, with no voting date having yet been decided in the civil liberties committee. (SP/transl.fl)