OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN DATA PROTECTION SUPERVISOR on the proposal for a Council directive imposing an obligation on Member States to maintain minimum stocks of crude oil and/or petroleum products.
The aforementioned proposal was sent by the Commission to the EDPS for an opinion on 14 November 2008. The proposal aims at ensuring a high level of security of oil supply in the Community through reliable and transparent mechanisms based on solidarity amongst Member States, maintaining minimum stocks of oil or petroleum products and putting in place the necessary procedural means to deal with a serious shortage.
The EDPS wishes to express his support to the way in which the Commission assured compliance with data protection rules in the proposed directive.
At a detailed level, the EDPS recommends the following:
- to replace the word ‘gathering’ in the first sentence of Article19(1) by the word ‘processing’;
- to move Article 20, which is the general provision on data protection, to the first part of the directive, namely directly after Article 2;
- to add to recital 25 the message that the provisions of the directive are without prejudice to the provisions of Directive 95/46/EC and Regulation (EC) No 45/2001;
- to delete the last sentence of recital 25.