This week’s key events presented by Euronews’ EU senior tech and industry reporter Cynthia Kroet.
Key diary dates
- Monday 13 January: EU Council to approve Switzerland joining the EU-funded military mobility project.
- Tuesday 14 January: President of the Republic of Finland Alexander Stubb will host a summit of the Baltic Sea NATO countries in Helsinki.
- Thursday 16 December: Candidates to become the next European Data Protection Supervisor to be heard in the civil liberties committee of the European Parliament.
In spotlight
Lawmakers of the Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, LIBE, will on Thursday hear four candidates that are running to become the next European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) – the privacy watchdog of the EU institutions.
The hearings were due in November but got delayed because the European Commission failed to draw up the shortlist before the mandate of the current EDPS, Wojciech Wiewiórowski, expired on 5 December.
Up for the job are Wiewiórowski – who has held the position since 2019 – French university professor François Pellegrini, Bruno Gencarelli, previously a cabinet member of former Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and Anna Pouliou, chair of the Data Protection Commission at nuclear research centre CERN.
Although the EDPS is not able to fine companies for a GDPR breach, since that’s a competence of the national data protection authorities, its advisory role to those watchdogs is particularly important. As the AI Act will start to apply this year, and data protection authorities will see their privacy work more and more intertwined with AI, the new EDPS can have an agenda setting role here.
Another topic that the new chief will see carried over is the compliance of the Commission itself with the EU’s privacy rules regarding its use of Microsoft 365. The EU executive had until December to show its compliance, the EDPS is now analysing the evidence.
Policy newsmakers
Gas transit spat
Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico was in combative mood after meeting EU top brass last week to discuss Ukraine’s decision to end the transit of Russian gas through its territory, reiterating warnings of “reciprocal measures” against its war-ravaged neighbour.
These could include limiting electricity supplies and aid for Ukrainian refugees, Fico said, also implying that his government might be prepared to block action at the EU level.
“Yes, some may say that it is cruel what I am saying now, but it is also cruel what [Ukrainian president Volodymyr] Zelenskyy is doing to us and what he is doing to the EU,” Fico told reporters in Brussels. “It is damaging. It is cruel.”
