Kristian Vigenin with an active role in achieving more speed and protection for citizens when their personal data is misused

Clear deadlines and faster action by national authorities in the European Union when there are disputes about personal data protection; better coordination between national authorities and coordinated notification procedures for resolving disputes. Citizens will be better informed about the progress of their complaints. These are some of the changes in the final agreement reached by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on strengthening the cross-border enforcement of the GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation. The head of the Delegation of Bulgarian Socialists in the European Parliament Kristian Vigenin is rapporteur on behalf of the Group of Socialists and Democrats. He said: “I am proud that we managed to win more rights for complainants, clearer and more precise deadlines, and more obligations on the supervisory authorities to do their job. The initial proposal was published in the autumn of 2023 and, thanks to the contribution of the European Parliament and of our group, it was significantly improved.” The MEP added that needless obstacles in the process of analysing cross-border complaints are being removed, with more direct action and less bureaucracy.

Kristian Vigenin also pointed out that what has been achieved with the agreement answers the long-standing calls of the socialists for the GDPR to be genuinely applied, not simply on paper but with real protection mechanisms. “We aim to strengthen the trust of citizens in the digital transformation, because it is clearly visible who protects their data and how. We are setting clear rules for communication and cooperation between institutions, which will also make things easier for business, because delays and uncertainty are quickly avoided,” he added.

The MEP gave an example of how the agreement works: if someone lodges a complaint against Meta (Facebook), the Irish commission responsible for personal data protection will be obliged to consider it and issue a decision within a set deadline, rather than dragging it out for years as it has so far. “I hope we are making things easier for everyone who is seeking their rights. The right to privacy and to protection of personal data is a basic human right, without which many others lose their meaning. Today we made an important step towards more fairness and responsibility towards people in the digital age,” Kristian Vigenin concluded.