Mr. Pádraig Dalton:

I am not 100% sure. If I had to go one way or the other all the current signals would suggest that this regulation will pass. One never knows, however, what is going to happen when it goes into the Council and Parliament process. First it will go to the Council working group for statistics. It will have to agree a position, which is always a negotiated position so it will change from this. It will then go to the committee of permanent representatives to the EU, COREPER, and once they give the Presidency the mandate for negotiation it will go to a trilogue. I do not know what will happen once we go to COREPER and to the Parliament. A question that could be asked is why one would take a big risk on mandatory exchange of confidential microdata for optional usage.