The future of the draft regulation on the privacy of electronic communications remains undefined by the Council. The Austrian Presidency concluded the meeting of the Telecommunications Working Group on Monday 29 October by stating that it needed time to define the way to move forward. However, it is expected to present a new compromise text for yet another meeting on 20 November.
"The meeting was positive, we continued discussions on the topics opened. The Presidency is now assessing the situation and we will then decide on the next steps in the process", commented a spokesman for the rotating Presidency of the Council at the end of the meeting, without giving any further details. However, time is running out before the European elections (see EUROPE 12122): in the absence of a political agreement by the Council, negotiations with the European Parliament will not be able to start and this would force the new Parliament to reposition itself.
What future for this proposal?
For one observer, there is no doubt about it, the text is dead for this office term. For another source close to the case, it is too early to draw this kind of conclusion. Above all, she emphasised, in the absence of an agreement, the current ePrivacy Regulation would apply to electronic communications as newly defined by the code of the same name (including the Internet of Things and circumvention services). The Commission, however, continues to believe in it.
In any case, the meeting on 29 October - the 35th since the negotiations began - did not seem to lead to a conclusion on a way forward. The Presidency has several options: continue to discuss the text at the technical level (working group), take it to the political level (Coreper) or abandon the discussions. According to one source, one third of the Member States would like to hasten things and start negotiations with Parliament and two thirds are rearing up on problems they consider fundamental (technical and/or political level).
Multiple open-ended questions
In recent months, discussions have focused mainly on Articles 6, 8 and 10 - considered to be the most politically sensitive. The meeting on 29 October was the first in months to deal with the text as a whole (see EUROPE 12122).
The Austrian Presidency is expected to present a new compromise text around 13 November, in preparation of the meeting of the working group on 20 November. Many questions remain unanswered. Among them, it is worth noting: - the delicate issue of retention of data linked to Article 11; - the extent of processing of data from third parties (e.g. by banking companies for the detection of fraud); - the possibility of introducing surveillance to combat pornography or the development of terrorist content; - a competent body to monitor the protection of privacy; - the dual regime for location data. Not to mention Article 6 on metadata processing, which has become, in the opinion of one source, a real monster since the possibility of "further processing" was introduced. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)