On 10 February 2021, the Council of the European Union published a press release according to which the Member States' representatives at the Council (Committee of Permanent Representatives or "Coreper") have agreed to grant a negotiating mandate to the Council for the revised rules on the protection of privacy and confidentiality in the use of electronic communications services.
Hence, after years of a certain legislative slowdown following the publication in 2017 of the EU Commission's proposal for a regulation on the respect for private life and the protection of personal data in electronic communications (the "e-Privacy Regulation") aiming to replace the e-Privacy Directive 2002/58/EC, this mandate of negotiation will finally permit the launch of a "trilogue" legislative process (between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission) with a view to reaching a final agreement on the content on the said e-Privacy Regulation (not expected any time soon though).
That said, it is interesting to note that - thanks to the GDPR itself - many businesses have already voluntarily adopted certain of the mechanisms referred to in the legislation in preparation for the use of cookies (cookies being one of the main blocking points of discussion). In particular, informing users about the use of cookies is now quite widespread behaviour. In contrast, dealing with consent collection is still quite inconsistent across the board.
Read more about the e-Privacy Regulation (and its interplay with GDPR).
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