The Spring Conference of European Data Protection Authorities is the most important annual meeting of all data protection commissioners from EU Member States and other European states.

The first meeting took place in 1991 in Hague. After the Conference in Paris in 1993 a decision was made to organise the Spring Conference of European Data Protection Authorities in the spring each year. The organiser of this year's Conference which was held on 25-26 April 2005 in Krakow was the Inspector General for the Protection of Personal Data, Ewa Kulesza.

The particular conferences are devoted to various aspects of personal data protection in Europe, and their participants undertake activities aimed not only at implementation of the EU provisions, but also at the monitoring of their observation in specific countries. In particular, the issues related to the application of the provisions of the Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data are discussed. The subject of discussions includes also the protection of personal data processed for the purposes of co-operation of the Police, as well as co-operation of the courts in criminal and civil cases, that is the activities undertaken within the framework of Third Pillar of the European Union.

As we celebrate the 10^th anniversary of passing the Directive 95/46/EC in 2005, this year was a good moment to think about general evaluation of its provisions and of the way of their realisation in the context of the growing risks of the right to privacy and data protection from the perspective of time and the so far experiences. Therefore, the theme of this year's Conference was the 10^th anniversary of passing the Directive 95/46/EC.

The following subjects have been in particular discussed during the sessions: : 

• The impact of Directive 95/46/EC on the level of personal data protection in the UE and in third countries,
• Evaluation of the existing provisions of Directive 95/46/EC and their application in practice,
• Personal data protection within the EU third pillar,
• New legal instruments enabling the transfer of personal data to third countries (Binding Corporate Rules),
• Awareness and education in the field of personal data protection,
• Exercising the right of access to their data by the data subjects.

During the part of the Spring Conference devoted to the issues of personal data protection under the Third Pillar the participants have adopted a number of documents connected with this question. The most important document adopted by the 2005 Spring Conference is the Krakow Declaration calling for adoption of relevant regulation on data processing under the Third Pillar and for establishing of Working Party on the forum of which the works on date protection in law enforcement would by continued. The Position paper on Law Enforcement & Information Exchange in the EU constituting an addendum to the Krakow Declaration indicates a number of principles which should be taken into account in the course of legislation works on the said regulation. The last document adopted by the Conference if the Opinion on the draft Framework Decision on simplifying the exchange of information and intelligence between law enforcement authorities of the Member States of the European Union, in particular as regards serious offences including terrorist acts indicating significant lacks in the field of data protection noticed in the draft concerned and calling for amendment of the draft taking into account the Krakow Declaration and remarks given in the adopted opinion.