Claude Moraes, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Mr President, I think that the Commissioner, skilfully as usual, anticipated the questions that we have. First of all, what do we do in the meantime when it is now public knowledge that the US has issued a number of subpoenas directed at social networks and internet service providers like Yahoo, Twitter and Google? This clearly gives the US access to information about data-sharing between WikiLeaks and third entities. Of course, it is the third entities – European citizens, people who are perfectly innocently accessing the internet, young people, people who are curious – who will be the targets and who will be damaged by this data regime.

This has huge implications for the right to privacy of all EU citizens. Those who signed up to tweets by WikiLeaks due to an interest in the ongoing Assange case are ironically left vulnerable to US subpoenas and collection of their personal data. Sites like Twitter are subject to US legislation, as their servers are based in the US. Although I understand when you say that we cannot affect the law of third countries, we can do something in the interim.

I think it is a legitimate concern for all of us in this House that we have to explain to our constituents what protection they can have from the European Union. What is the point of ensuring data protection standards for EU citizens if they can simply be lifted at the request of a US subpoena?

It is clear that more has to be done to safeguard the personal data of EU citizens, who should be protected by strong, high-level EU legislation. I know that you are working on that aim. Until now, Framework Directive 94/46 has provided very strong protection in the internal market, but the time has come to review the directive, increase the level of protection and extend the same protective measures to judicial and police cooperation.

We will ensure that these objectives are reached through our future legislative work, and you have mentioned that. In this respect, one of the main elements that the Commission intends to introduce in the review is EU protection to withstand the US subpoenas. We must remember that this issue does not stop at sites like Twitter, but can apply in cases of national jurisdiction. We have this in one of our own Member States today with the UK census, which is a massive undertaking being overseen by an American company. This is a genuine and ongoing concern of EU citizens. You have given some partial answers today, but I think we are right to raise this and to get more detailed answers.