Happy belated Data Protection Day! It has been another busy week for Europe: Politically, the appointment of a new hard-left government in Greece sent shockwaves through the EU as the new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras got down to business immediately after winning the parliamentary elections with an almost absolute majority. “A new era has begun; a government of national salvation has arrived,” he said, referring to the strict austerity policy imposed on Greece over the past few years. Tsipras’s electoral success was long anticipated and follows on from the political rise of radical anti-EU voices all over Europe, as demonstrated at last year’s European elections.

Against this backdrop, Europe is still coming to terms with the Paris terrorist attacks and debating how to strike a balance between security and fundamental rights such as the right to privacy. The European Parliament met in plenary this Wednesday to discuss pan-European antiterrorism measures. During the session, EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos presented the commission’s proposed measures on fighting terrorism, a preview of the commission’s Security Agenda for 2015-2020. The measures anticipated by Commissioner Avramopoulos include the adoption of an EU PNR Directive, “necessary to enhance substantially the security of all people living in Europe,” according to Avramopoulos, who specified that “no decision has been made” about the Directive yet, except for the “commission’s commitment to work with co-legislators to achieve a legal instrument which is both effective and fully in line with fundamental rights.”

The commissioner’s speech attracted rather strong reactions in Parliament, including by MEP Jan Philip Albrecht, who called the commission’s proposals “blanket mass surveillance.” 

On Thursday, Justice and Home Affairs ministers from all EU member states also held an informal meeting on pan-European antiterrorism measures in Riga. How will these discussions impact the ongoing negotiations on the EU data protection package?