Germany to delay tuning EU data directive into law

The German government will not present any law on data retention directive until the European Court of Justice has delivered its verdict on the controversial law of the European Union (EU), media reported on Friday. According to German weekly Der Spiegel, Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas and Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere have already come to an agreement to wait for the court's decision which is due out in the next few months. The government will further discuss this issue during a cabinet meeting next week. Heiko Maas, member of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), announced early January that he wanted to delay turning the EU's data retention directive into German law. His announcement came amid legal action by the European Commission and despite the fact that SPD's two coalition partners want to transpose the 2006 EU law as soon as possible. The data retention directive allows governments and intelligence agencies to track phone and internet use of EU citizens by forcing telecom operators to set up separate databases specifically for police access. The data is retained between six months to two years. In 2010, Germany's constitutional court declared the German data retention law, which came into force two years earlier, to be in breach of the German charter. The rejection sparked legal action by the European Commission, which took Berlin to the justice court in 2012. Maas noted that the court must first deliver its verdict before any decision is made. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), want to turn the EU directive into national law right away. If the court votes in favor of Brussels, the European Commission plans to slap a penalty payment of 315,000 euros (426,159 U.S. dollars) for each day after the court ruling until Germany falls into line.