Vilnius, 18/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - Arriving in Vilnius on Thursday 18 July for an informal meeting, German Home Affairs Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich suggested that the EU adopt a “Charter of digital fundamental rights”, which could serve as a basis for transatlantic trade negotiations.
The minister has recently come under fire from Commissioner Viviane Reding, who is responsible for the reform of the data protection rules, for failing to attend the formal meeting of justice ministers in June of this year. This time, he arrived at the informal meeting in Vilnius with a series of announcements, such as the possibility of discussing with the other ministers the type of private data which companies active in Europe actually send abroad. These concerns were raised with the recent revelations on the existence of the PRISM programme, involving web giants such as Google, Facebook and AOL. Minister Friedrich, whose moves to obtain elements of information from Washington have come in for much criticism in his home country, believes that there must be “transparency” in how these data are used. The European Commission and the citizens of Europe should be “told” when their data are sent to another country, the minister added, going on to call for a special provision in the reform underway.
“A law, and not a Charter, remains the only effective way of ensuring proper protection for the data of the Europeans” is, however, the view of another source. In the middle of its election campaigns, some people feel that Germany's stance on data protection reform is somewhat contradictory, as the country is amongst the keenest to complete this reform of the 1995 directive, yet, from time to time, puts the brakes on, as was the case in Luxembourg in June of this year, when Secretary of State Ole Schroeder said that it was too soon to agree on the compromise proposed by the Irish Presidency. Although this position irritates Commissioner Viviane Reding, the German government feels that it is entirely logical and understandable. “In Germany, there is a considerable number of laws on data protection and we have to have a detailed look at the impact of the reform on these various provisions and, most importantly, make sure that it will not end up reducing our level of protection”, a spokesperson to the representation explained on Tuesday. “All of this takes an enormous amount of time” and this may be why Reding has “the impression that we do not support the reform”; but, at the European Parliament, the discussions take just as long, the spokesperson added. The dossier was to have been dealt with on Thursday on the sidelines of the meeting of the home affairs ministers, but will be the subject of a specific item on the agenda of the justice ministers on Friday. On Thursday, Commissioner Cecilia Malmström announced that the transatlantic working group on data protection would meet for the first time in Brussels on 22 and 23 July, as Thursday's Coreper approved the composition of this group. It will be jointly led by the Commission and the Lithuanian Presidency and will also include, from the European side, the anti-terrorism coordinator of the EU, the External Action Service, a representative of the Article 29 Group (which is made up of the national data protection authorities) and some 10 representatives of the member states, the Presidency explained in a press release. (SP/transl.fl)