By Jean de Ruyt and Sebastian Vos

On January 25, 2012, the European Commission presented a proposal for a “Regulation on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data”, the “Data Protection Regulation” (DPR). The Commissioner in charge of justice at the time, Viviane Reding, aware of the complexity of the matter, stated jokingly that she hoped a decision on this proposal would at least be reached by the end of her term, i.e. in October 2014.

Reding is now gone, a new EU Commission is in place, but the Council of Ministers has only agreed very recently on a few chapters of the ninety page proposal; “Trilogue” negotiations between the European Parliament, the Council, and the Commission have not even started.  When, recently, the new Commissioner, Vera Jourova, claimed that a final agreement will be reached before the end of 2015, this deadline was seen by experts as wishful thinking, just as all those announced previously by her predecessor.

The Parliament cannot be blamed: on 12 March 2014, just before being dissolved in preparation for the May elections, it endorsed with 621 votes in favor, 10 against and 22 abstentions, the position on the regulation adopted by the LIBE (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs) Committee. But this vote was seen more as a political move (in the context of the NSA scandal) than a nuanced and balanced approach to the difficult issues at stake. The stronger safeguards inserted, the increased level of fines, and some radical definitions are light years away from the compromises currently discussed in the Council. So even when the Council will have reached a common position (or “general approach”) on the whole text, reconciling this position with the Parliament’s might take a long time – or end up in a deadlock.…

Continue Reading The EU data protection regulation after 3 years of negotiation