EU and USA must urgently provide revised “Safe Harbour”

“A disruption of cross-border data flow could seriously affect Europe’s transatlantic trade with the USA.”

Reacting to today’s ruling of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg on the Safe Harbour framework, Markus J. Beyrer, BUSINESSEUROPE Director General, further warned that: “Today’s court judgment gives rise to great legal uncertainty that must be remedied urgently. It would have very negative consequences for the functioning of the EU single market, in any sector of the European economy.”

“EU and US authorities should urgently come up with a revised Safe Harbour framework that addresses the current concerns – in particular by improving transparency and enforcement”, Beyrer said.

Several thousands of companies, including SMEs, rely on Safe Harbour when transferring data between the EU and USA.  

The solution is not to revoke Safe Harbour, but to improve it. Respect of fundamental rights is crucial and companies should be able to disclose when they have to share data with public authorities for national security purposes.

From an EU single market perspective, companies cannot operate within a fragmented system. This would go against current efforts to further improve the single market.  BUSINESSEUROPE calls for a consistent European approach to international data transfers.

BUSINESSEUROPE will meet EU Commissioner Oettinger next week to discuss actions to be taken and will be requesting meetings with Commission Vice-President Ansip and EU Commissioner Jourova.