The EU Data Protection Regulation has four times the number of amendments as the Telecoms Package. How will the rapporteur handle this disproportionate application of lobbying?

The full scale of the lobbying crisis over new European privacy rules has been exposed today as the rapporteur, Jan Albrecht, published his full draft report with amendments. They total a staggering three thousand, one hundred and thirty-three, on 1347 pages. He will need a court-room trolley to carry them around. How will he handle the massive conflict that the content of the amendments reflects ?

Read more: EU data privacy law gets a whopping 3133 amendments

The review of the European privacy law - also known as the Data Protection Regulation - has come in for some comment about the lobbying and the eye-opening revelations about the scale of the corporate lobbyists amendments that have been tabled by MEPs. But I feel that this is a rather simplistic way of looking at it. As academics, we have more sophisticated job to do. We have to ask, what is the politics? What is problem that we are being critical of? To say, there's a lot of lobbying may be a starting point, but is a very long way from the end-game. So what does it really take to analyse amendments in European legislation?

Read more: EU privacy lobbying amendments - monochrome or shades of grey?

It's all about money, get it!

Apart from banker bashing and fishing quotas, the toughest political battle in the European Parliament this year will be the one over data protection. Indeed, if the Telecoms Package fight over copyright was hot, this one is a cauldron of fire. MEPs will have to step carefully where angels fear to tread.

Read more: New EU privacy rules: your data, their profit