BRUSSELS – DECEMBER 4 2018 – Following the decision today by the EU Telecommunications Ministers to continue technical deliberations on the draft ePrivacy Regulation rather than providing the Austrian Presidency with a mandate to begin informal trilogue negotiations, Thomas Boué, Director General, Policy – EMEA, made the following statement:

“The decision made today by the EU Telecommunications Ministers to continue technical discussions on the draft ePrivacy Regulation is the right approach. Legislators need to ensure that the right level of technical details are included in the Regulation to avoid overly prescriptive provisions that would otherwise risk the growth of cloud computing in Europe. As the GDPR has come into force only six months ago, it is important to ensure that the future ePrivacy law does not create any regulatory overlaps. There is no justifiable reason why we should rush with the ePrivacy Regulation when the current Council text remains imbalanced.”