Finland is preparing to take over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union on 1 July. On 27 May, it published a document in which it presents its priorities in the digital field under the slogan “Smart connections for sustainable growth”.
The document has few surprises in store. Helsinki will continue work on the outstanding legislative dossiers, namely the draft regulation on the confidentiality of electronic communications (ePrivacy) and the draft regulation on competence centres. The incoming Presidency will work to integrate and strengthen digital services, broadband connections and data economics. “We hope this work will result in increased sustainability, growth, employment, competitiveness, security and innovation in the EU”, it says.
In detail, Finland is planning high-level conferences on digital data and transport to discuss access and reuse of data in general. On legislative issues, it refrains from any formal commitment on the difficult ePrivacy issue, given the current blockages in the EU Council. “We will further them as far as possible with the aim to ensure high quality of the legislation”, it says. On the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre Regulation proposal, it said it hoped to return to the negotiating table with the European Parliament. This implies that the parties will need to have a common understanding of the link between the new proposal and Horizon 2020 funding, which is still not the case, as the EU Council's Legal Service is slow to publish such an analysis.
It should be noted that Helsinki also identifies 5G network security as one of the topics to be discussed over the next 6 months.
Link: https://bit.ly/2EArzeA. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)