MEPs on the Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee are set to finalise their position on European Data Governance (EDG) on Friday 16 July. On Thursday, they approved the negotiated compromise amendments by a very large majority.
“There should be no surprises and the text should be adopted by a large majority. The major political parties in the Parliament support this text”, a source close to the dossier confirmed to EUROPE on Thursday 15 July.
“These EU rules will lay the foundations for trustworthy data sharing, so dearly needed to promote a fair and efficient data economy in Europe”, said rapporteur Angelika Niebler (EPP, Germany).
The Parliament’s approach in its report is relatively close to that pursued at the end of June by the Member States in the EU Council on the basis of a compromise proposal by the previous Portuguese Presidency (see EUROPE 12753/9). This highlights the importance of respecting national rules in the event of a data governance conflict.
On 15 July, discussions among MEPs focused in particular on the inherent issue of data protection.
“The S&D group focused on security. And as for the EPP group, it was important to facilitate the sharing and transmission of data. A compromise has been reached on these points”, a source explained, without giving further details on this stage.
The issue of data sharing remained a complex one where concerns extended beyond the ranks of European Socialists and Democrats.
In fact, the German Industrial Association (BDI) recently published a study suggesting that almost 90% of small and medium-sized enterprises are reluctant to share more data for fear of unauthorised access.
Almost 40% of SMEs say they want to use more data. But the data they need is not available. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)