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Deutsch: EU-US Gipfel: Gemeinsame Erklärung missachtet Europäische Bürgerrec...

A common statement issued at the EU-US summit that took place on 28 November 2011 at the White House in Washington included several aspects with direct impact on digital civil rights that shows the US have succeeded again in obtaining what they wanted, while the European Union representatives have failed to protect the EU citizens fundamental rights, especially the right to privacy.

The statement clearly states that while the PNR agreement was negotiated, there is still no deadline for an EU-US data protection agreement. "We welcome the successful completion of negotiations on a new Passenger Name Record agreement, and look forward to its early adoption and ratification" says item 18 of the statement which continues by mentioning the intention to finalize negotiations on a "comprehensive EU-U.S. data privacy and protection agreement that provides a high level of privacy protection for all individuals and thereby facilitates the exchange of data needed to fight crime and terrorism."

US have also pushed in support for the CoE Cybercrime Convention, but there is nothing stated in relation with a commitment to ratify or at least start to negotiate any of the fundamental rights conventions of the CoE. Also, the US has rejected a request from the Commission to include net neutrality in the statement, but they have managed to get in their wording on the engagement with the private sector.

"We welcome the progress made by the EU-U.S. Working Group on Cyber-security and Cyber-crime, notably the successful Cyber Atlantic 2011 exercise. We endorse its ambitious goals for 2012, including combating online sexual abuse of children; enhancing the security of domain names and Internet Protocol addresses; promotion of international ratification, including by all EU Member States, of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime ideally by year's end; establishing appropriate information exchange mechanisms to jointly engage with the private sector; and confronting the unfair market access barriers that European and U.S. technology companies face abroad," says item18 of the joint statement.

EU-U.S. Summit joint statement (28.11.2011)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/842