At a videoconference on 9 October 2020, the German Council Presidency informed the justice ministers of the state of play regarding the e-evidence legislative proposals, submitted by the Commission in April 2018 ( → eucrim 1/2018, 35-36). The proposals – one for a Regulation on the European Production and Preservation Order and one for a Directive on the appointment of legal representatives of the IT companies –aim to speed up access to electronic evidence regardless of the location of the data. The ministers reiterated their Council negotiating position as agreed on the Regulation in December 2018 ( → eucrim 4/2018, 206) and on the Directive in March 2019 ( → eucrim 1/2019, 40). The Presidency hopes that the European Parliament will adopt their position soon, so that trilogue negotiations can still start in 2020. However, the EP has not shown essential moves since MEPs’ critical positions taken in 2019 ( → eucrim 1/2019, 38-40).

The European Commission also reported to ministers on ongoing international negotiations regarding e-evidence, which include negotiations for an EU-US agreement on cross-border access to e-evidence ( → eucrim 3/2019, 179) and negotiations in the Council of Europe on a second additional protocol to the Budapest Convention (→ eucrim 4/2019, 248).