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A political agreement on the telecom package was reached by the EU Council on 27 November 2008. Even though the final text does not support the 3 strikes measures proposed by the French Presidency, it has also deleted some important amendments adopted by the European Parliament in order to safeguard the citizen's fundamental rights.
Austria and Denmark have spoken up for keeping the Amendment 138 during the Council meeting. Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland joined them in an attempt to provide safeguards for users in the event of any attempts to sanction them or restrict their access to content on the Internet. They asked the exclusion of any issues related to copyright enforcement and the promotion of creative content instead. But in the end, the Council decided the deletion of this amendment, the only pretext expressed being that the wording was too broad.
The new text of the modified Universal Services Directive allows the national regulatory authorities to "promote cooperation between undertakings providing electronic communications networks and/or services and the sectors interested in the promotion of lawful content in electronic communication networks and services." The adopted recitals makes it clear that any cooperation procedures will not allow for systematic Internet monitoring and that the Member States, and not the electronic communication providers, have to "decide, in accordance with due process, whether content, applications or services are lawful or harmful or not."
The decision of the Telecom Council to reject the 3 strike scheme, comes after the EU culture ministers took a similar decision on 20 November. They also suggested promoting legal offers of music or films on the Internet. The EU Culture Council considered that "a fair balance between the various fundamental rights" needs to be establishedwhile fighting online piracy, first listing "the right to personal data protection," then "the freedom of information" and only lastly "the protection of intellectual property".
In fact, the Commission has already sent a number of critical comments on the French draft law on 3 strikes, suggesting a long series of changes in order to comply with the European legislation.
The text adopted by the European Telecom Council is not so positive from the privacy point of view. Thus, the Council has rejected the suggestion of the Parliament to allow a study on Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and their use that should have been promoted by the Commission.
The Council has decided to keep Art 6 par 6 (formerly amendment 181 adopted by the European Parliament) that has been interpreted as an open door for voluntary data retention. Thus, the German actions to push for the rejection of the amendment 181 in the Telecom Council did not found a majority, despite the public position of the German federal minister of economic affairs Michael Glos. He agreed with a number of civil society representatives that this amendment "would create unmanageable data dumps and thus expose sensitive data on our communications and movements to risks of abuse."
The Telecom Council has taken the European Commission's point of view in restricting the obligation for personal data breach notification only for electronic communication providers, thus excluding the Parliament amendment that extended this provision also to "any company operating on the Internet, providing services to consumers, which is the data controller and provider of information society services."
The Council has also limited the number of cases when the notification to the competent Authority and affected individuals is mandatory only in cases representing "a serious risk for subscriber's privacy."
This common position adopted by the Telecom Council is a base for new negotiations between EU Bodies, that could meetthis month. Also, a new informal meeting of the Telecom ministers is already scheduled on 17 February. The second reading of the European Parliament on the agreed text could take place at the beginning of 2009.
2907th Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting (provisional
version) - (27.11.2008)
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_applications/Applications/newsRoom...
European Council - Reviewed ePrivacy Directive (27.11.2008)
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/08/st15/st15896.en08.pdf
European Council - Reviewed Universal Service Directive (27.11.2008)
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/08/st15/st15899.en08.pdf
Federal government supports opposition against "voluntary data retention"
(25.11.2008)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/280/79/lang,en/
EU states bin telecoms 'super-regulator' idea (27.11.2008)
http://euobserver.com/19/27192
Citizen safeguards striked out in EU Council (26.11.2008)
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/citizen-safeguards-striked-out-in-EU-co...
Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland - only EU members on the same page vis-a-vis
Internet content control (1.12.2008)
http://blog.veni.com/?p=898
European Council opposes Parliament on Amendment 138 (27.11.2008)
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&am...
EU ministers reject ban on free downloading (21.11.2008)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/eu-ministers-reject-ban-free-do...
Denmark and Austria speak up for citizens rights (27.11.2008)
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&am...
Commission response to France's obligation of notification for its
"graduated response" law (only in French, 27.11.2008)
http://www.latribune.fr/entreprises/communication/telecom-internet/200...
EDRi-gram: Data breach notification - different opinions in EU bodies?
(19.11.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number6.22/data-breach-ec