Proposals to align EU instruments in the field of criminal law with EU rules on the protection of personal data

On 20 January 2021, the European Commission adopted two proposals for Directives amending two European Union instruments in the field of criminal law – Council Framework Decision 2002/465/JHA, on Joint Investigations Teams, and Directive 2014/41/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014, regarding the European Investigation Order in criminal matters – with the aim of ensuring their alignment with the EU’s rules on the protection of personal data, namely with principles and provisions laid down in Directive (EU) 2016/680 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data (the Data Protection Law Enforcement Directive).

Both proposals have been examined at expert level in the COPEN WP since 23 February 2021 and an agreement has been reached. After this preparatory work, COREPER agreed to start negotiations with the European Parliament on the two draft Directives based on the texts set out in documents 8043/21 and 8048/21.

Both files were endorsed in the LIBE Committee meeting of 14 July 2021. On 16 July 2021, the said Committee tabled its two reports concerning the proposed directives amending Directive 2014/41/EU and Framework Decision 2002/465/JHA. The two proposals were discussed in the plenary of 15 September 2021, where the European Parliament decided not to propose any amendmends to the proposals, according to the simplified procedure, and to open interinstitutional negotioations. Later on 21 September and 13 October 2021 during the technical meetings, the Commission, the European Parliament and the Presidency of the Council reached a provisional agreement on the draft amendments that the European Parliament would present as regards the Commission Proposal.