"Despite Edward Snowden's revelations [...] and the annoyance of the MEPs, who are demanding retaliatory measures against Washington, European Union member states continue to procrastinate,"says French daily Le Monde of new data protection measures being hammered out by the EU.
The European Council of October 24-25 decided to delay the application of stricter rules on data protection, that is to say, the paper stresses, that action against major Internet firms, most of them American, will be delayed until "after the EU elections scheduled for spring 2014, once a new Commission and new Parliament are in place." The newspaper adds –
In the short term, the personal data of European citizens runs the risk of not being better protected from major American Internet companies and, through them, by intelligence services, notably in the United States, the National Security Agency (NSA), despite insistences from the Commission and the European Parliament.
