20/04/2018 (Agence Europe) – The Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU announced after a meeting of a working group on 19 April that it will hold a policy debate on the draft legislation on electronic communications and privacy (ePrivacy) at the Telecoms Council on 8 June. A European source tells us the debate will guide future work on this complex issue. The draft regulation on the table aims to boost confidentiality of online exchanges while allowing service providers to make use of the personal data of clients who have given prior consent (see EUROPE 11700). On 13 April, the presidency suggested expanding the justifications for data processing without prior consent in order to optimise network management (Article 6(2)(a)) and "statistical counting") (Article 6(2)(f)) (see EUROPE 12002). (SPj)