Daniel Dalton, on behalf of the ECR Group. – Mr President, I want to thank the rapporteur for her work in driving this dossier forward. This was critical in ensuring that we reached a swift agreement.

Ensuring the free flow of data is vital to create a competitive data economy. Without genuine competition in the data processing market, we will all continue to pay more than we should do for slower quality services. A healthy data market is the first requirement for a successful digital single market. At the moment, the free flow of data is hindered by a series of obstacles. Many public authorities and branches of government have unjustifiable data localisation requirements. Their data sets were huge parts of the market and we need them to lead by example.

There’s also a lot of legal uncertainty about what laws apply in storing data across borders. We know that many customers have difficulties in switching providers for cloud storage and that there are some questionable practices in that market. Underpinning all of these obstacles to free flow of data is a lack of trust, a fear that if you store your data across borders you may have difficulties getting it when you need it.

This regulation should be a game changer for the economy. It creates a clear and unambiguous legal regime for the storage of data across borders. It prohibits data localisation except in specific justified cases of a risk to national security, and it gives legal certainty that data can be accessed across borders. It also fosters a cloud market where switching is easy, encouraging competitiveness of cloud service providers.

Let’s make no mistake, this is the biggest success in the digital single market so far and I very much hope that we can use this as a benchmark also for agreements on the free flow of data in future with third countries.