On Thursday 13 September, MEPs approved (by 527 votes for, 51 against and 27 abstentions), the interinstitutional agreement reached at the end of May (see EUROPE 12025) on the draft regulation relating to the processing of personal data by the bodies and institutions of the European Union (see EUROPE 11700).
The aim of the text was to have a level of protection for the EU institutions and bodies, equivalent to that provided by the general regulation on personal data protection, which has been in force since 25 May.
“I believe we have been very careful to ensure that what exists for each European citizen also exists for the European institutions”, said the rapporteur, Cornelia Ernst (GUE/NGL, Germany) during the debate prior to voting.
European Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova welcomed the final text, although she did express regret that missions relating to common security and defence policy were not included in its scope. “This creates a gap which will need to be filled with additional legislative instruments”, she said.
The sticking points in the talks mainly concerned the scope of the regulation in relation to legal and police cooperation (see EUROPE 11963).
Although the S&D and Greens/EFA Groups spoke of their disappointment about the fact that, for now, only Eurojust is included in the scope of application, MEPs said that the review clause whereby the Commission should, by 2022, evaluate the need to include Europol and the European Prosecutor, was finally a good compromise. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)