The Telecommunications Ministers of EU Member States are due to meet on Friday 3 June in Luxembourg to review the progress made on various major digital dossiers that are under discussion. This Council of Ministers will take place the day after the Council of Transport Ministers, who are also meeting in Luxembourg (see other news).
In specific terms, the ministers of the Member States will first work on the proposed legislation on artificial intelligence (AI) (see EUROPE 12957/17).
The French Presidency of the EU Council had drafted a first compromise text on the subject, in which it specifically clarified and adapted the requirements pertaining to high-risk AI systems, specified the responsibilities of the various actors involved in the AI value chain, and simplified the processes used to assess the conformity of systems.
Part of the discussion is also due to focus on the issue of governance and on the specificities and constraints of law enforcement agencies and how they use AI systems.
The ministers will continue their day by tackling the future European digital identity wallet (see EUROPE 12961/8). Regarding this subject, several political questions remain unanswered, such as linking the future wallet to national means of identification that already exist.
Discussions on this issue should also focus on trust services, in particular those that are responsible for electronic data archiving and electronic registers, as well as the liability regime for trust service providers and how they are supervised.
Progress that has been made on the Data Act (see EUROPE 12923/26) will then be reviewed by the relevant Ministers. It should be remembered that this text, which was presented in February 2022 by the European Commission, is intended to ensure fairness when distributing value between players, as well as promoting access to, and the use of, data.
Part of the discussion will be devoted to the state of play on issues such as the ePrivacy Directive or the ‘Path to the Digital Decade’ (see EUROPE 12954/35), as well as concluding negotiations on the NIS2 Directive, which is intended to result in a common high level of cyber security across the EU (see EUROPE 12952/1).
“This is an important Council of Ministers for the French Presidency of the EU Council, because it will also allow us to take stock of closed files”, commented a senior European diplomat.
Finally, the ministers will address the subject of the green and digital transition, debating the environmental impact assessment for digital technology, as well as the different ways in which sustainable digital technology can be developed. Within this context, the ministers will discuss methodologies for measuring the environmental footprint of digital technology and the specific targets that the EU should aim to meet by 2030.
See the agenda (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/1wi (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)