After meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Thursday, European Commissioner for Digital Single Market and Vice President of the European Commission Andrus Ansip expressed confidence that the U.S. continues to support a strong Privacy Shield.
Ansip tweeted that he and Ross “agreed on the need for a robust and predictable Privacy Shield for safe and secure US-EU data flows.” He also took to Twitter to say that he and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, were aligned regarding “strong US-EU cooperation on cybersecurity,” which he said was “essential for IoT and network security.”
The commissioner's tweets came a day before he spoke at an Atlantic Council event to launch the organization's report, Charting the Future Now: European Economic Growth and Its Importance to American Prosperity. During his address, Ansip noted that both the U.S. and the EU “have a strong interest in keeping data flowing freely,” since it lies “at the heart of the 4th industrial revolution” and “global data flows are surging.”
That a “trade reality” that has translated in a 10 percent uptick in the world GDP, or “$7.8 trillion in 2014 alone,” Ansip said.
Ansip's remarks were on the heels of a stern warning to the Trump administration by EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova who said if the U.S. doesn't stick to the terms of the Privacy Shield, the EU will yank it.
“If there is a significant change, we will suspend” it, said Jourova, who meets with Trump officials later this month. “I will not hesitate to do it. There's too much at stake.”
