The Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union has made clear its objective to achieve a general partial approach on certain articles of the new legislative package on data protection by December 2012, with a view to having the whole legislative package adopted in 2013 or early in 2014.
The Cyprus Presidency has so far achieved agreement within the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council (a body that brings together the justice and interior ministers of the EU Member States and whose remit includes civil protection) on three principal issues: (i) to avoid creating additional and disproportionate costs for small and medium-sized businesses, (ii) to implement a common set of data protection regulations for the private and public sector, with some flexibility for public-sector organizations and (iii) to limit the enhanced powers proposed in the new legislative package so that the EU Commission is not able to regulate through delegated acts without the approval of the European Parliament.
While the Cyprus Presidency has been praised by Viviane Reding, Vice President of the EU Commission, for supporting the new reform package, it is clear that there is still a lot of work to be done to bring the package into law.
For more information, see: http://www.cy2012.eu/index.php/en/news-categories/areas/justice-and-home-affairs/feature-step-by-step-towards-data-protection