Deadline for adopting the EU Data Protection Regulation shifted to the end of 2014

The stakeholders have agreed on a new deadline, the end of 2014, to give the ministers of the 28 EU Member States in the Justice Council an opportunity to agree on the remaining controversial issues. EU Justice Commissioner, Viviane Reding, confirmed today that the deadline for agreement has now been shifted by several months.

A tripartite meeting took place in Athens on 22 January with the European Commission, the two European Parliament rapporteurs and the current Greek and next Italian Presidencies of the EU. It resulted in ‘a road map for agreeing on the data protection reform swiftly’. “The objective is to agree on a mandate for negotiation with the European Parliament before the end of the Greek Presidency in June. The European Parliament is expected to adopt the proposals at its first reading in the April 2014 plenary session,” Reding stated in a memo.

According to EuroObserver.com, Jan Philipp Albrecht, MEP, in charge of the European Parliament’s LIBE Committee compromise text, said that the timetable aims at a mandate for negotiations in June and the beginning of inter-institutional negotiations in July.