Athens, 23/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - Setting up a strategy to overcome the Council's slowness and hesitation regarding its data protection reform and to forestall the “electoral” breaks that are to come with the May elections - such is the aim of Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, who met the Greek and Italian Presidencies as well as European Parliament rapporteurs to discuss this subject on Wednesday evening 22 January on the eve of the informal meeting of European justice and home ministers. Reding, who comes from Luxembourg and who could also run for European elections, said during the meeting that the Greek, then Italian, Presidencies, as well as the European Parliament, will do everything in their power to have her reform adopted by the end of the year.
Given the aim of entirely closing the issue (which, we recall, contains a general regulation on personal data protection and a directive on police and judicial data transfer) by the time the European elections come to an end, Reding is now seeking to ensure that the Council reaches a partial general approach in March on certain key chapters (chapters 1 to 7), including among other things the famous “one-stop-shop” that had divided ministers in December, and then a general approach in June on all aspects of reform, including the directive.
With the timetable now in place, the Council may, from July on, begin trialogues with the European Parliament that will have already given the Council its stance on the matter in plenary before it breaks up. To the question of whether the timetable is tenable, one might answer that it is not impossible as the Greek Presidency has already included the dossier as one of the items on the agenda of the formal Councils in March and June to attempt to reach a partial approach, followed by a general approach. One source in Council has said that “we shall seek to keep to the timetable set in place by Viviane Reding but the programme remains indicative”. Regarding the directive, which has still not been truly worked out, the ministers still want to look at some aspects more closely. The directive in fact raises some sensitive issues, such as police files.
Early December last year, the Council and Commission had exchanged insults on the one-stop-shop mechanism, which consists of organising complaints and decision-making by the different national protection authorities, including a European board depending on the circumstances. The Council, in a scathing opinion, had challenged this flagship provision of Reding's project and the question had still not been resolved ahead of the informal meeting in Athens.
On Thursday, ministers evoked chapter 5 of the regulation, a chapter relating to international data transfers. Ministers seem to agree that this chapter provides for several possibilities: - transfers to third countries on the basis of an adequacy decision, that is, a decision taken by the Commission when the Commission is certain that the country in question respects the standards in force (a decision that can be withdrawn if the country's standards were to weaken); - or, for other types of transfers, the development of compulsory rules for companies (via contractual clauses for example). All these aspects were discussed on Thursday afternoon, 23 January. There was no special guest, however, as Reding, who was to go to the Economic Forum in Davos, had planned to leave the meeting rapidly and was to be replaced during the discussion by the director-general of her service. (SP/transl.jl)