EU Parliament will hear candidates for top privacy job on 16 January

European Parliament hearings to select the next European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) – the privacy watchdog of the EU institutions – will take place on 16 January, a Parliament spokesperson confirmed to Euronews.

Key lawmakers of the Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, LIBE, postponed the hearings to give candidates and lawmakers enough time to prepare.

The candidates shortlisted by the European Commission are not public, but Euronews understands that both current EDPS Wojciech Wiewiórowski – who has held the position since 2019 – and French university professor François Pellegrini, are on the list. 

Bruno Gencarelli, a cabinet member of Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders, and a former head of international affairs and data flows at the Commission and Anna Pouliou, chair of the Data Protection Commission at nuclear research centre CERN, are also candidates, according to a source familiar with the process. 

Wiewiórowski’s current mandate ends on 5 December. 

The hearings in the LIBE committee were meant to take place in the second half of November, but the European Commission, which is in charge of the process, only approved its shortlist of three to four candidates on 13 November, a spokesperson for the Commission told Euronews. 

Alongside a vote in Parliament, the candidate also needs to be endorsed by representatives of the 27 EU member states.

The EDPS holds EU institutions accountable for privacy compliance, though it’s less powerful than national privacy watchdogs, which can fine big tech companies for violating the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.