Germany consults Member States on next steps for ePrivacy
Germany has taken the Presidency of the Council of the EU on the 1st of July. The Presidency is planning a first TELEWG on the 13th of July to discuss the progress on the ePrivacy Regulation and have prepared this presidency discussion paper.
The Germany presidency sets its objective to reach a general approach, or a mandate to start negotiation with the European Parliament. In order to reach this objective, the German Presidency believes that the Member States must find an agreement on article 6 (protection of electronic communication) and article 8 (protection of end-user’s terminal equipment).
With regard to article 8, the German Presidency is contemplating the 2 approaches from the previous Presidencies. Either Member States favor the approach proposed in March by the Croatian presidency to include the ability to access user’s terminal equipment on the basis of legitimate interest. Or, Member States favour the approach proposed back in November 2019 by the Finnish Presidency which did not include legitimate interest, but tried to strike a balance proposal by introducing some wording in recitals 20 and 21 with regard to conditionality of access (cookie walls).
For each options, the Presidency has provided questions to steer the discussion among Member States in the coming months.
