The European Union’s debate on the envisaged data protection law has come to a halt and Tibor Navracsics doubts any progress will be made in the matter within this cycle, before the European Parliament’s elections are held next May.

The Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Administration and Justice spoke about this to journalists in Brussels on Friday, after participating at the meeting of EU Justice Ministers.

He recalled that Hungary has been in a dispute with the European Commission, the EU’s executive body responsible for proposing legislation, on European data protection since the very start.

“In our opinion, a regulation is not the most flexible law. If we were to adapt Hungarian data protection laws, which represent a high level by European standards, to a European average in the form of a regulation, it could well deteriorate its quality”, he said to explain why Hungary believes the law should take the form a directive rather than a regulation.

Mr Navracsics quoted Viviane Reding, the European Commission’s Vice President and Commissioner for Justice, who believes the data protection debate has “stalled”. There are several countries, he added, including Hungary, which refuse to reduce the requirement that the headquarters of European data protection authorities should be close to and accessible by citizens while retaining quality, and that criteria should not impose any extra burden on small and medium size enterprises.

“Today the Commission could not give a reassuring answer to the enforcement of any requirement, so the majority of Member States decided that we cannot go any further in the matter of data security”, Mr Navracsics explained.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)