The Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union wants to quickly agree with the European Community's privacy law on electronic communications to combat sexual abuse of children on the Internet.

To try to unblock the current struggles, and given the “fundamentally different” positions of the two institutions around the proposal for regulation with a view to a temporary derogation from certain provisions of the directive on privacy and electronic communications, the Minister of Justice and acting President of the EU Justice Council, Francisca Van Dunem, wrote to the European Parliament (EP) to intensify political negotiations, with a view to a situation that she considers urgent.

“The Portuguese Presidency of the Council is strongly committed to reaching a quick and positive conclusion to this dossier. The technical meetings allowed progress on some issues. However, the co-legislator approach to this proposal remain fundamentally different”, argues Francisca Van Dune.

“The Portuguese presidency is committed to submitting concrete constructive proposals to achieve a common understanding and an agreement with the EP as soon as possible. We are confident that the EP is also committed to an agreement very soon to combat sexual abuse of children online”, concludes the minister.

In September last year, the European Commission presented a proposal for a provisional regulation to ensure that online communications service providers can continue to detect and report online sexual abuse of children and remove child pornography material.