The Art. 29 Working Party, which brings together representatives of the different national supervisory Data Protection Authorities, is a body responsible for giving advice and making recommendations to the European institutions on specific data protection issues. It works closely with the Commission. At European level, no similar institution has been established for example as regards consumer or environmental protection, although some national legislations do provide for supervisory bodies in these matters . To put it a little bit bluntly, it could be said that Art. 29 of the Data Protection Directive has officially installed a kind of ‘privacy lobby group’ at the heart of the European institutions. It must also be highlighted that the Working Party has a unique role to play not only in the process of ensuring the acquis of the European Data Protection, but also when it comes to progressively adapt the legislative framework and its effective application to the real needs of society in a changing context which still creates new privacy threats . Taking the latter into account, as well as the recent debates about the draft EU Council Framework Decision on Data Protection in the Third Pillar which intends to create a similar or integrated institution as the Art. 29 W.P. , in this contribution we will propose some reflections about the functioning of this institution, its impact on the Data Protection debates, its contribution to a better implementation and understanding of the Data Protection rules and, at the same time, we will analyse how this institution might be viewed as a ‘model’ or ‘tool’ for ensuring ‘reflexive Governance’. Our approach will start with an institutional description of the role, tasks and competences of the Art. 29 W.P. In a second step, we will consider the strategies developed by the Art. 29 W.P. to accomplish its tasks, notably the alliances it has developed with other actors. On that point we will give particular attention to the setting-up of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and to the present debate about the Data Protection in the Third Pillar. Last but not least, in a third and a fourth step, we will scrutinise the priorities and main achievements of the Art. 29 W.P. activities. Finally, we will try to conclude on the significance of the project and work of this Working Party for the central question of this book, namely the relevance of the hypothesis of ‘reflexive governance’ and ‘learning-based’ governance for the devising of a European human rights policy