Brussels, 16/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The United States Senate Homeland Security Committee does not want any changes to be made to the EU-United States PNR agreement, currently being renegotiated between both parties, and voted through a resolution to this effect on Wednesday 11 May.
Tabled by Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins and adopted unanimously, the resolution says that the transfer of air passengers' personal information is one of the best ways of tackling terrorism in the United States, giving the examples of Faisal Shahzad, who carried out a failed terrorist attack on Times Square in New York in 2010 and David Headley, who was involved in the Bombay bombings in 2008, both of whom had been identified using the PNR system. The resolution demands that the US government refuse to grant any concessions to the EU on how passenger information is supplied and demands that the government refuse to go along with any changes to the current set-up.
In force from 2007 to 2014, the current EU-United States PNR deal has not been endorsed by the European Parliament which, using new powers conferred upon it by the Lisbon Treaty, rejected the agreement in May 2010, demanding a postponement of the vote. The EP is concerned about the length of time for which personal information about European passengers is kept. When refusing to vote, the EP called for international PNR agreements to abide by EU data protection rules, to be proportionate, properly managed and used for legitimate purposes. The Commission was given a negotiating mandate by the EU Council of Ministers in December 2010 and entered negotiations with the United States in January 2011. The Commission will need to submit the new draft agreement to the EP, which is due to vote on the new agreement in July 2011, but it is possible that the EP will decide to postpone the vote again.
The European Commission is refusing to comment on the Senate resolution at this stage (it will be followed shortly by a resolution from the US Chamber of Representatives) or how it will impact on the negotiations. Commissioner Malmström's department will only comment that more questions remain to be settled with the United States than with Canada and Australia, with which the Commission has recently finished negotiating PNR deals. An EU-US negotiating meeting was planned for Monday 16 May. A source explained on Friday that according to an initial timeline, the Commission was due to submit a draft agreement to the JHA Council in Luxembourg on 9 or 10 June, with the vote at the EP taking place in July (MEP Sophie In't Veld is writing the EP report). The Commission refused on Monday 16 May to comment on timing. (S.P./transl.fl)