The leaders from the different European countries have delayed the time frame allotted for implementation of the new and stricter version of the data protection law. The decision has been made in view of the fact that this may actually help in boosting the digital economy of the continent. Most of the heads of states who had participated in the EU summit agreed on eliminating the early implementation of the new data protection law. Besides, they unanimously agreed that the new and stricter laws must be implemented in a timely fashion, and no hurry in implementation must be shown.
In addition, the discussion also saw a major setback for the proposal that focused on the overhauling of the fragmented telecom rules patchwork in Europe. Considering all the factors, it was decided that the implementation of the rules will not be enforced in 2014 and will be delayed to 2015. The delays that have imposed on the implementation of the data protection laws indicate that the European countries are unable to gain consensus on even the issues that were agreed upon previously. The passing of the law was decided by the countries as they entered the EU summit. However, as the discussion progressed, the decision was taken otherwise.
After allegations of spying by the U.S. on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, privacy and its protection had become a major issue concerning the European Union. There were widespread reports that indicated U.S. spying on citizens of the European Union. Besides, this was augmented by the fact that the telecom sector of the European economy is losing its edge. Therefore, a privacy law was proposed to protect the rights of individuals. One of the provisions of the law included ‘rights to be forgotten’. This provision was passed by the European parliamentary committee recently after discussing it for close to two years.
France has shown keenness on speeding up the implementation process because of the nearing elections in the country. However, the law’s implementation was strongly condemned and opposed by the British saying that the implementation of the data protection law must be carried out in a timely fashion. They believed that the package requires some fine-tuning to suffice the demands of smaller firms. The division on opinion between countries like Germany, France and United Kingdom forced the European Union committee to delay the implementation of this stricter version of data regulation laws.
The United Kingdom’s point that the implementation can have serious implications on the economy of the countries was seen as a serious point of consideration and led to the decision. However, the repeated incidents of U.S. spying, which is supported with evidence in terms of the data made available cannot be overlooked. Therefore, all the countries unanimously agreed that the data regulation laws cannot be overlooked. However, this short delay was acceptable to ensure that rushed implementation does not lead to any grave economic implications. The countries believe that the tradeoff between the citizen’s privacy protection and negative impact of the country’s economy will be solved in this allotted time.
