A final
agreement on the Data Protection Reform package is to be postponed until after
the May 2014 elections in the European Parliament. The European Commission, the
two lead rapporteurs on the issue in the European Parliament, together with the
Greek Presidency and the incoming Italian Presidency agreed to set the deadline
for the adoption of the Data Protection bill at the end of 2014.
The Civil
liberties, Justice and Home Affairs committee adopted the package on 22 October
2013. However, strong divisions between the Heads of Government of the EU 28
Member States during the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting in December
2013 have put negotiations at a standstill, where they stated that the reform
on Data Protection would be "timely" and achieved in 2015 "at
the latest". At the occasion of the European Data Protection Day on 28
January 2014, Commission Vice-President and Justice Commissioner Mrs. Viviane
Reding expressed the urgency to close the Data Protection reform file and
strongly advocated for negotiations in the Council to be restarted as quickly
as possible.