LERU accuses Parliament of threatening EU research

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) has expressed its concern at amendments made by the European Parliament to the European General Data Protection Regulation.

LERU has called upon the Council of the European Union to oppose the amendments that it says would be “highly detrimental for scientific research”, in particular amendments to Article 81 and Article 83.

In view of the upcoming Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on 6 June, LERU said it wants to “reiterate its rejection of the amendments adopted by the European Parliament´s LIBE (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs) Committee on 21 October 2013”. LERU has urged the Council of Ministers to bring into the negotiations a position that “duly respects the interests of the research community, in line with the European Commission´s original proposal of 25 January 2012”.

LERU said that restrictions introduced by these amendments “will affect research using data concerning health but also data processing for historical, statistical, or scientific research purposes”, adding that “scientific research as a whole would be seriously hampered”. The league pointed out that “safeguards for the use of personal data already exist and introducing specific consent for the use of data will seriously hinder research to the point of making it impracticable”.

Professor Kurt Deketelaere, secretary general of LERU, said: “If the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs are not able to undo these European Parliament amendments (now or in trialogue) significant research projects and programmes, including several funded and/or set up by the EC, will be at risk. Protection of privacy is justified of course, but it must not lead to measures which reach too far and will put European researchers in a clearly disadvantageous position compared to other researchers worldwide.”