The European Union has long faced the problem of how overcome the challenge of sharing data across borders for effective cross-national research. One of the key issues is a harmonisation of standards and protocols. The ESSNet project funded by Eurostat has developed a protocol for statistical disclosure that can be implemented by all european member states. This presentation will outline some of the challenges faced, the standard developed, and will look how the standard might be used to change the european data infrastructure in the future.