Hello there. It's great to see you again. Welcome back to Emlex's weekly podcast, covering the top stories in regulatory affairs with the assistance of our team of reporters around the world. My name is James

Panicki. I'm a senior editor here at Emlex. And strap yourself in for today's podcast because

we're taking a deep dive into the politics of data protection. As everyone familiar with Europe

knows only too well, Belgium is a country with many levels of government and many political

and cultural divisions. But what happens when the strongly contested politics of an EU member

state, such as Belgium, spill over into EU regulation and the institutions established under

that regulation.

The recent turmoil at the heart of Belgium's Data Protection Authority, or DPA,

offers us an interesting case study into the challenges of implementing EU policy,

particularly policy that's as significant as the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR.

Our Brussels-based correspondent, Nicholas Wallace,

has written a fantastic account of the turmoil at the Belgian DPA,

and he joins us now from the capital of the peaceable kingdom.

Nicholas, we've seen a big shake-up at the top of Belgium's DPA.

Two senior figures have been fired, several other officials have resigned. Now, for the benefit of those of us who are perhaps unfamiliar with

Belgian political machinations, tell us in very general terms what has happened.

So this has been a very long story that's unfolded over a few years now, but

what happened fundamentally was there was a concern at the Belgian Data Protection Authority

about conflicts of interest. So the DPA in its current form was established in 2018 after the EU's general data protection regulation took effect.

It replaced an older body called the Belgian Privacy Commission,

which was similar in some ways, but the main difference between them was the DPA has teeth.

It has enforcement powers, whereas the Belgian Privacy Commission was more kind of an advisory body for the government.

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