The draft regulation on the confidentiality of electronic communications is reborn from its ashes (see EUROPE 12129).
The Austrian Presidency of the Council of the EU intends to bring the case to the Member States' ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) in the near future, an Austrian source has confirmed.
While the principle has been agreed on, the date of the meeting has not yet been decided.
This plan had been floating for several days. But it is no less surprising. On the one hand, the Austrian Presidency had always stated that it would be satisfied with a progress report on this proposal, which extended the confidentiality rules to circumvent operators such as WhatsApp or Skype (see EUROPE 11700).
On the other hand, many provisions - such as those on data retention (Article 11) or metadata processing (Article 6) - continue to raise questions.
But the Austrian Presidency seems to have decided not to take any responsibility for a failure. The absence of a political agreement in principle ('general approach') would not make it possible to negotiate a final agreement with the current Parliament, which has been adopting its position for more than a year (see EUROPE 11887).
According to one observer, it is unlikely that a blocking minority will be formed at the meeting of the Permanent Representatives Committee. However, this observer wonders about the legitimacy of such a mandate - which might not reflect the positions of Member States, some of which do not even have a clear internal position yet. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)