Brussels, 08/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - The mandate of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and his assistant will expire in a week's time on 16 January. Their role is to ensure respect for personal data protection in the European institutions and they have been called on to perform a new role in the forthcoming reform of the 1995 directive. Successors have not as yet been found.
The current supervisor, Peter Hustinx, has held this position over two mandates (ten years in total) and will not be putting forward his candidacy for this role again. On 7 January, he sent a heartfelt letter on this issue to Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, in charge of this dossier and the chair of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, Juan Lopez Aguilar, from Spain.
In this letter, Hustinx expressed his main concerns that, with a week to go until his mandate expires, “at this stage, it is rather unlikely that a team of supervisors will be appointed before or just after the mandate expires”. He deplored the fact that this would create a period of uncertainty that is most unwelcome in this period characterised by the recent phone tapping scandals. He described this as a “critical period” and called on the main players responsible for this issue to designate a team of replacements as soon as possible. According to the regulation in force (Regulation 45/2001), the European Data Protection Supervisor has to remain in his role, “until he is provided with a replacement”. Hustinx is afraid tha,t if this situation is protracted, it could seriously undermine the role of the EDPS at a time that key discussions are taking place on data protection reform.
The European Commission is responsible for presenting a list of around five or six candidates (in general) to the European Parliament and Council, which will jointly come to a decision. One source, however, has revealed that “this list has still not been provided”. An initial group of five candidates was assessed by a reflection panel (from the Commission, EP, Council and independent experts) at the end of the year, but no candidate was felt to be suitable for the post, said Antonio Gravili, Sefcovic's spokesperson. While waiting for a fresh group of candidates to be evaluated, the commissioner will meet with Hustinx next week to persuade him to remain in post until appointments have been finalised.
The EP civil liberties committee already broached the situation at the beginning of December and expressed its concern about rumours that candidates concerned about maintaining good transatlantic relations would be proposed. The services of Maros Sefcovic and Viviane Reding have not made any comment concerning these allegations. The commissioner for justice and fundamental rights did not, in her remarks when addressing MEPs, make any judgment on this dossier, out of respect for the institution's independence, but did say that she was convinced that Maros Sefcovic would do things clorrectly. (SP/transl.fl)