On October 29, 2015, the European Parliament voted to approve a resolution calling on member states to “drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender.” According to the press release [3], the Parliament also welcomed the European Court of Justice’s decision [4] in Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner, calling on the Commission to recognize the “impact of the judgment” and to “take the necessary measures to ensure that all personal data transferred to the US are subject to an effective level of protection that is essentially equivalent to that guaranteed in the EU.”

The European Parliament’s vote comes after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s vote on a resolution [5] in June 2015 that urged the U.S. “to allow Mr Edward Snowden to return without fear of criminal prosecution under conditions that would not allow him to raise the public interest defence.” The resolution calls on all member states to “enact whistle-blower protection laws also covering employees of national security or intelligence services and of private firms working in this field” and to “grant asylum, as far as possible under national law, to whistle-blowers threatened by retaliation in their home countries, provided their disclosures qualify for protection under the principles advocated by the Assembly.”