Post-Council for Transport, Telecoms and Energy

Margot James Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Written Statements

[The Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries (Margot James)]

The Transport, Telecoms and Energy Council (TTE) took place in Luxembourg. Lord Ashton of Hyde represented the UK at the telecoms session of the Council, on 8 June.

Member states (MS) were asked to vote on a general approach (GA) on the Cybersecurity Act regulation. The UK voted in favour of this GA, after having received waivers from the European Scrutiny Committee (ESC) and European Union Committee (EUC).

This Council went on to hold a progress report/policy debate on the proposed regulation concerning e-privacy, in which the presidency urged MS to help drive progress on the e-privacy regulation.

The Austrian delegation then set out its work programme as the incoming presidency for the second half of 2018. As part of its commitment to completing various digital single market (DSM) initiatives, the Austrian delegation highlighted the importance of continued work on the e-privacy regulation and made clear its ambition to achieve a GA on a .eu top level domain name during the course of its presidency. The Austrian delegation also noted that the next TTE telecoms Council would be held on 4 December 2018.

This session of the Council went on to engage in a policy debate on the directive on the reuse of public sector information (PSI).

The presidency then provided information on the directive on the European electronic communications code (EECC); the regulation on the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC); and the regulation on a framework for the free flow of non-personal data in the EU.

To conclude this session of the Council, the Commission provided information on the state of play of the DSM.

[HCWS778]