Brussels, 19/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on 4 December, the Justice Ministers of the EU will seek to agree on new chapters of the general regulation on the protection of personal data, which will replace the 1995 directive (EUROPE 11174).
Contrary to statements made in Luxembourg in October by the Italian Minister, Andrea Orlando, the ministers are not yet ready to rubber-stamp a global general approach.
On 4 December, the ministers will discuss the application of the data protection rules to the public sector, several countries have expressed concern in the past at a lack of flexibility, for instance in the case of helpful social protection authorities having to deal with masses of data. The Italian Presidency of the Council will ask the member states their opinions on the introduction of a minimum harmonisation clause for the public sector, aiming to allow the member states to apply a higher degree of protection at their level than that laid down in the initial text.
Chapter 9 of the legislative proposal, which relates to all specific data protection situations, such as the handling of data in the press or access to official documents, will also be the subject of a decision.
However, “it will not be enough to open trialogues at the end of the year”, one European source believes. The Council of the EU could, at best, adopt its global general approach on the whole of the regulation in spring 2015 or at the end of the forthcoming Latvian Presidency of the Council, which does not appear to want to open trialogues until it has finalised its position on the reform.
'One stop shop'. It is likely that the Twenty-Eight will reopen their discussions on the 'one-stop shop', or the principle of the single window. This key element of the reform will organise the way in which disputes are resolved between citizens and businesses and has proven extremely sensitive. A new architecture of the mechanism is being looked into. The Italian proposal is a halfway house between those calling for the powers of sanction to be given to a competent European agency only and those who want the national level to be fully involved with decisions leading to sanctions. It also includes the concern of closeness raised by a number of countries. The idea is that the European Data Protection Committee, the new authority set up by the regulation, will intervene only in the event of disputes over decisions between more than one national administration. The national ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) are soon to decide whether the question of the 'one-stop shop' will be discussed on 4 December. (SP)