European e-Privacy Directive will likely become a Regulation

As it was just reported by huntonprivacyblog, that Politico released an article saying that the European Commission wishes to upgrade the e-Privacy Directive to a Regulation.

This upgrade would cause highly important legal consequences under European law due to the fact that a Directive needs to be implemented in to national law, whereas a Regulation implies requirements that are directly applicable in the Member States.

The draft of the Regulation, which was leaked to Politico, tries to complete the European GDPR. As Politico explained, the draft was last reviewed on the 28th November 2016. It is expected that it will be officially published at the beginning of 2017.

The e-Privacy Directive shall protect privacy and confidentiality of users of electronic communication services.