On Monday 9 July, the Austrian Minister for Justice, Josef Moser, presented the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the EU’s priorities to the European Parliament's civil liberties committee.
The legislative draft aims to improve cross-border access to electronic evidence held by communication service providers and will be the subject of particular attention in the second half of 2018 (see EUROPE 12003).
The Minister explained that the aim is to have an orientation debate on this point in October, before focusing on an agreement of political principle (“general approach”) at the Council in December. The Austrian Presidency therefore wants to move quickly, if possible as soon as the informal ministers' meeting next week in Innsbruck (see other article).
The meeting is also expected to tackle the question of conflicting laws (see EUROPE 12051). Mr Moser explained that “We think that when an operator is outside the European Union but offering services in one or several EU member states, he also has to respect the legal rules of the member state”. This will also involve informally discussing the EU's common position in relation to the US ‘CLOUD Act’.
He insisted that “We really want to bring this electronic evidence project to a conclusion”.
The extremely difficult ‘ECRIS-TCN’ dossier. The Austrian minister called for several dossiers to be swiftly concluded including the European criminal records information system (ECRIS-TCN) for third country nationals and stateless persons.
The minister informed the MEPs that “I know very well that there are differences in the opinions and approaches of the Parliament and Council but I do not think that they will in themselves prevent an agreement”.
Questioned by Angelika Mlinar (ALDE, Austria) regarding the apparently irreconcilable differences of opinions between the Parliament and Council on including dual nationals (see EUROPE 12031), Mr Moser referred to an initial meeting held on 3 July with several of the member states involved in an effort to “see to what extent a compromise is possible”. Another meeting is planned for Wednesday 18 July during which the compromise proposals could be put on the table.
He affirmed that “I think that an agreement with the European Parliament could be found this year”. Mr Moser said that with “a little good will”, their inter-institutional trialogues could be concluded swiftly.
Civil and commercial law. It should be pointed out that in the area of civil and commercial law, Austria also says in its programme that it is “very interested” in continuing work on revising the Brussels II regulation a) on matrimonial legal decisions and parental responsibility. It would also like to make progress and “if possible” finalise a political agreement of principle at the Council on the “insolvency” directive. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)