Brussels, 07/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - German ALDE MEP Alexander Nuno Alvaro said on Wednesday that he was very unhappy about the data retention compromise between the PES and EPP-ED groups at the European Parliament and the Council. He said ministers had tricked the EP and got round it, and it would be difficult now to get the necessary majority at the European Parliament to swing the balance. Following the 1 / 2 December JHA Council where the EU25 justice and home affairs ministers agreed on a compromise text for the draft data retention directive (see EUROPE 9081), the two biggest political groups at the European Parliament, the PES and EPP-ED, suddenly agreed to adopt a similar text in first reading to the one approved by the ministers, despite the fact the EP's Civil Liberties Committee had decided on 24 November in favour of the Alvaro Report calling for considerable amendments to the data retention plans (see EUROPE 9076). The Alvaro Report will be discussed in plenary on 12 December in Strasbourg and voted upon the next day. An absolute majority (367 votes) is unlikely to be reached because the two biggest political groups at the EP are now working together on this controversial issue. The Greens/EFA tabled an amendment on 6 December rejecting the Alvaro Report on data retention.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Dutch Green MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg said that keeping data for two years is too long, too extensive and extremely costly and is not an effective way of combatting terrorism or crime.
Joaquim Bayo Delgado, deputy European Data Protection Controller, said it was a tricky question of timing because the data retention directive will come into force before the third pillar data protection directive (see EUROPE 9041). European Digital Rights (EDRI) and European Telecommunication Networks (ETNO) have also called for the directive to be rejected. Sjoeras Nas of EDRI points out that the directive will lead to irreversible changes in civil liberties in the EU, while Fiona Taylor of ETNO says that applying such a directive would be unfeasible because no databases yet exist big enough to retain data on such a huge scale.