On 26 March, the United States and the European Union held a stock-taking meeting concerning the possibility of an EU-US agreement on cross-border access to electronic evidence held by a service provider in the context of criminal proceedings.
According to a European Commission information memo to the Council of the EU and the European Parliament (dated 31 March and seen by EUROPE), the meeting aimed to take stock of developments since the last round of negotiations in March 2020.
The meeting also aimed to prepare for the next EU-US Justice and Home Affairs Senior Officials’ Meeting, which will be held via video conference on 14 and 15 April.
“At the meeting, the importance of the negotiations was underlined by both sides”, according to the memo.
In particular, the EU presented the status of the ongoing interinstitutional negotiations on European proposals regarding electronic evidence, which must be concluded before the EU can go to the heart of the negotiations with the United States.
Moreover, the European Commission provided information on the timetable for these negotiations and indicated that, to date, discussions among co-legislators have focused on the definitions of service providers and data categories (see EUROPE 12684/10).
Furthermore, the European Commission has once again emphasised the close relationship between internal EU negotiations and those conducted with the United States (see EUROPE 12499/28).
For its part, the United States informed the EU that the bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States that was signed in October 2019 in accordance with the CLOUD Act—which, in the context of criminal investigations, allows law enforcement authorities on both sides direct access to electronic data stored by companies in the other country (see EUROPE 12344/7)—has not yet entered into force, as a number of issues must still be resolved.
The United States has also started negotiations with Australia and is considering opening negotiations with other non-EU countries, but it has not provided the European Commission with further details.
Both sides agreed to meet again in June, before the next meeting of EU and US justice ministers, to discuss the way forward. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)