The General Data protection Regulation (2012/0011 COD) will not be adopted before the European Parliament elections.
On 22 January 2014, the Commissioner for Justice, Vivian Reding, representative of the Greek and incoming Italian Presidency and the European Parliament, lead negotiators on the package, agreed to set the deadline for completion of the file for before the end of the year. According to this new timetable a mandate for negotiations should be given in June and the trilogue would start in July.
Member states still have to reach a general approach before kicking off negotiations with the European Parliament and the European Commission. Member States failed to agree a general approach to the dossier at the meeting of the Council’s Justice and Home Affairs Committee in December, delaying progress and leading to this postponement.
One of the main reasons behind this delay is that some Member States (UK, Denmark, Hungary, and Slovenia amongst others) want to weaken the regulation, having a Directive instead.
In the Parliament, the first reading in the plenary is still expected to take place on the 11 March 2014, although EU insiders mention April. Having the data protection package in place by the latest in 2015, as agreed by Member states in October, seems now even more challenging.
