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COREPER II Ambassadors Agree the Council Negotiating Position on the Digital Omnibus – 21/10/2026

At their meeting on 21/10/2026, EU Ambassadors (COREPER II) agreed the Council negotiating position on the Digital Omnibus by a qualified majority.

The approved compromise text will now form the Council’s negotiating position for the trilogue discussions with the European Parliament and the Commission, forecast to commence in Q1 or Q2, 2027, once the Parliament has also adopted its negotiating position.

As previously highlighted here by Privacy Next, the approved compromise text is a significantly watered-down version of the original Commission proposal and is difficult to reconcile with the ambition for EU competitiveness already agreed by all the EU Institutions in the One Europe, One Market, Roadmap, despite claims to the contrary in the press release announcing today’s approval by EU Ambassadors. The lack of alignment with that high-level EU roadmap is strikingly evident from the Council’s approach to innovation-critical personal data processing under GDPR, including for AI development/deployment, scientific research and outsourced data processing, with the Council opting for a complex suite of additional rules instead of the regulatory simplification that was promised.

21 October, 2026