The Ministers at the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council, following an agreement reached by the Council on 1 and 2 December 2005, adopted the Data Retention Directive on 21 February 2006.

The Directive was adopted by the European Parliament on 14 December 2006 after the Council threatened to push for its own much tougher draft, as a framework decision, if the MEPs were unable to agree on the compromise for a directive.

The Irish and Slovakian representatives in the Council voted against the Directive, considering that more stringent measures were necessary. They argued the Council should have pushed for a framework decision, instead of negotiating with the Parliament over a directive. However, the majority disagreed with this opinion and therefore the Directive was adopted. The Irish Government said they were considering taking the matter to the European Court of Justice.

At the last minute, the Dutch parliament tried to prevent agreement on the Directive. The Lower Chamber of the Dutch Parliament adopted a motion on 20 February 2005 stating that the directive "does not comply to the conditions of a maximum retention period of 1 year, of an adequate arrangement for access to the stored data and to a compensation arrangement that suffices for a level playing field" and therefore "requests that the Government, during the JHA Council of 21 February 2006, does not agree to this Directive and makes a serious effort to start meaningful deliberations about the conditions." However, Minister Donner of Justice ignored this motion and did not object in the JHA Council.

At the same time, Finland plans to use the maximum time delay before introducing internet data retention.

Data Retention Directive endorsed by Ministers (23.02.2006)
http://www.out-law.com/page-6666

Text of the Data Retention Directive adopted by the JHA Council (21.02.2006)
http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/05/st03/st03677.en05.pdf

Lower House: Donner may not agree to data retention (onli in Dutch, 21.02.2006)
http://www.webwereld.nl/articles/39886/bewaarplicht

Minutes of the parliamentary debate (only in Dutch, 21.02.2006)
http://www.tweedekamer.nl/images/TK051-0506_tcm71-93693.doc

Finland: Internet data retention to start in 2009? ( 27.02.2006)
http://e.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=48305

EDRI-gram : Final push for single EP vote on data retention (5.12.2005)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.24/EPvote