Louis Michel denies attempt to sabotage EU privacy law

Louis Michel, a member of the European Parliament and former EU commissioner, has denied any knowledge of more than 150 amendments proposed to an EU privacy law in his name. Yesterday a member of Michel's office resigned amid rumours the man had filed the proposed amendments in Michel's name in an attempt to weaken the legislation.

Michel has since withdrawn the amendments, but has not accepted the resignation of the staff member, who was named as Luc Paque. The MEP said he first wanted to talk to Paque.

The amendments were first revealed in the Panorama programme on the Flemish public broadcaster VRT. The new EU law on privacy aims to provide better protection for the public, but major Internet companies oppose tighter regulation, and there is a great deal of lobbying going on, the programme said, to weaken the provisions of the new law. Some 3,000 amendments have been tabled in all, and according to Panorama, former commissioner Michel was behind 158 of them – without his knowledge, he later claimed.

Michel's explanation makes no sense, according to fellow MEP Bart Staes of the Flemish green party Groen. “In my opinion Michel knew perfectly well what was going on, and he got scared afterwards.” Staff members can file amendments electronically, he said, but those need to be delivered later in printed form, with the MEP's signature attached. Michel could not have been unaware of such an unusually large number of amendments in his name, Staes argued.

Meanwhile the Federation of Belgian Enterprises, the former post office Bpost and the technology industry federation Agoria have admitted lobbying MEPs over the proposed privacy law, but claimed to have done so legitimately. “We spoke to members of parliament in a completely proper and transparent manner,” said Bpost spokesman Piet Van Speybroeck. Together with many other companies, we took part in meetings to make our position known. It's up to members themselves whether and how they react.”

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