News, Publications and Consultations from the Past Week

News CW 11 (11.03.2024-17.03.2024)

Artificial intelligence: In its session on 13 March, the European Parliament approved the agreement on the AI Act which had been reached in the trilogue. A total of 523 MEPs voted in favour of the regulation, 46 MEPs voted against and 49 MEPs abstained. No date has yet been set for the final endorsement by the Council. However, following the unanimous adoption of the regulation at COREPER level in February, the endorsement by the Council is considered a formality (EP).

Cybersecurity: The Cyber Resilience Act was adopted by the European Parliament on 12 March. With 517 votes in favour of the regulation, 12 against and 78 abstentions, the compromise reached in December received a broad majority in the plenary session. The regulation aims to ensure that products with digital functions are safe to use and resistant to cyber attacks (EP).

Energy efficiency: On 14 March 2024, the Commission published and adopted a revised version of the delegated regulation for a reporting scheme for data centres. The Commission was authorised to set reporting obligations and efficiency standards for data centres under the EU Energy Efficiency Directive, which recently came into force. In December 2023, the EU Commission first published a draft delegated regulation for a reporting system for data centres. The revised draft that has now been published follows the consultation that ran until 15 January 2024. The publication marks the start of a two-month period during which the EP and the Council can comment on the delegated regulation. If neither the Council nor the EP raises objections, the delegated regulation will enter directly into force (Commission).

Media policy: The European Parliament approved the trilogue result of the Media Freedom Act on 13 March. The regulation is intended to strengthen the independence and freedom of the media in the Member States and also contains provisions for the handling of media content by social media platforms. The use of spyware against journalists is not completely ruled out by the agreement reached in the trilogue; for example, exceptions are provided on grounds of national security (Euractiv).

Platform work: The platform work directive was adopted by the labour ministers of the Member States in the Council on 11 March. Prior to the vote, there was particular resistance from the relevant ministers from Greece and Estonia. In addition to minimum standards for platform workers, the directive also addresses the use of algorithms and the processing of certain data in the context of platform work, such as the psychological state of workers (Council).

Selected Publications from the EP Think Tank:

• Artificial intelligence act
• Understanding cybercrime

Ongoing Relevant European Commission Consultations

• Proposal for a Council Regulation on HPC (until04.2024)
• Combating child sexual abuse – review of EU rules (until04.2024)
• R&D on dual-use technologies – options for support (until04.2024)
• How to master Europe’s digital infrastructure needs? (until06.2024)

Selections of the Current Week CW 12 (18.03.2024-24.03.2024)

Council:

The current preview of the Council’s work for the coming days until 31.03.2024 can be found here.

Summit and Ministerial Meetings:

• General Affairs Council, 03.2024

Preparatory Bodies:

• Working Party on Research, 03.2024, Agenda
• Horizontal Working Party on Cyber Issues, 03.2024
• Coreper II, 03.2024
• WP on Telecommunications and Information Society, 03.2024, Agenda
• Law Enforcement Working Party (Police), 03.2023, Agenda
• WP on Hybrid Threats, 03.2024
• Audiovisual Working Party, 03.2024, Agenda
• Coreper II, 03.2024
• Coreper I, 03.2024
• WP on Competitiveness and Growth – Internal Market, 03.2024, Agenda
• Coreper I, 03.2024

An overview of the various Council dates can be found here.

Commission:

The agenda of the current Commission meeting was not available at our time of writing. You can potentially find it on the Commission’s website in the near future.

Parliament:

Plenary Sittings

There are no plenary sessions of the European Parliament this week.

Here you can find a list of the upcoming dates of the European Parliament. The calendar of the plenary sittings for 2024 is available here (PDF).

Committees

LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties)

The agenda for the current meeting of the LIBE Committee taking place on 18.03.2024  can be found here. From the perspective of the Internet industry, the following agenda items are relevant:

• The Use of Spyware in the European Union

LIBE/9/15018

First exchange of views with:

– Representative of the Spyware Inquiry Committee of the Polish Sejm (tbc)

– Representative of the Polish Senate (tbc)

– Lorenzo Mannelli, Director-General of the Directorate‑General for Innovation and Technological Support, European Parliament

JURI Committee (Legal Affairs)

The current timetables of the JURI Committee (as of 19.03.2024) can be found here.

ITRE Committee (Industry)

The agenda for the current meeting of the ITRE Committee taking place on 20.03.2024 can be found here. From the perspective of the Internet industry, the following agenda items are relevant:

• Laying down measures to strengthen solidarity and capacities in the Union to detect, prepare for and respond to cybersecurity threats and incidents, 2023/0109(COD)
• Amending Regulation (EU) 2021/1173 as regards an EuroHPC initiative for

start-ups to boost European leadership in trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, 2024/0016(CNS)

The current timetables of the ITRE Committee can be found here.

IMCO Committee (Internal Market)

The agenda for the current meeting of the IMCO Committee taking place on 20.03.2024 can be found here. From the perspective of the Internet industry, the following agenda item is relevant:

• Exchange of views on the implementation of the Digital Services Act:

enforcement, designation of VLOPs and international cooperation

The current timetables of the IMCO Committee can be found here.

CULT Committee (Culture and Education)

No meeting of the CULT Committee is scheduled for this week.

Outlook:

An overview of the following session weeks can be found here. The provisional agenda for the upcoming plenary sittings can be found here.

European Court of Justice

You can find the judicial calendar of the ECJ here.