Brussels, 10/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - Six months after reaching provisional agreement, the EU and the United States found common ground on Wednesday 9 November on the new provisions governing the transfer of European air passengers' data to the US Department of Homeland Security, the so-called PNR programme to tackle terrorism and serious crime, the European Commission said on Thursday 10 November. This agreement will be finalised next week, said Michele Cercone, spokesman for Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, and will form the basis for discussion by the European Parliament (EP) and Council, both of which have been able to comment on the draft text drawn up in May of this year.
The draft text, indeed, was not very well received by either Parliament or Council, because of reservations over the length of time the data could be retained - up to 15 years - and the forms of legal recourse in the event of misuse of the data by the US department. The Commission was thus implicitly enjoined to resume negotiations with the United States.
The Commission believes that the draft agreement of 9 November contains “real improvements”, Malmström's spokesman said, compared with the 2007 agreement which is currently in force, despite its not being approved by the EP. Under the new text, the range of crimes has been reduced to terrorism and serious crime (drug trafficking, human trafficking, etc) which risk prison sentences of “three years or more under the American system”, a source has revealed. The 2007 draft agreement is much wider, covering all kinds to serious cross-border crime, the Commission says. In May's agreement cross-border punishes crimes that could result in extradition - “crimes that could result in less than one year in prison”, as EP sources interpreted it - and included tax crimes, too.
Another improvement, the Commission pointed out, is that the length of time data can be retained varies depending on the type of crime. While this remains at 15 years for terrorist crimes, it has been reduced to 10 years for other infringements. The period after which the data are held in a “dormant database” has also been reduced: five years for terrorism and serious crime, compared with 7 and 8 years in the 2007 agreement.
The Commission also flags up a further difference compared with the 2007 agreement: the “anonymisation” of data after six month, “which did not exist previously”¸ a spokeswoman said (though it appeared in May's draft text).
Other areas where there has been consolidation include, according to the Commission, the possibility for Europeans of recourse in US courts in the event of misuse of their data. European citizens will henceforth have the right to “access to their data, to correction and erasure”, Cercone went on.
These are claims which do not convince everyone, however. An EP source has already said that these changes are essentially “cosmetic”. “Very little has been changed in the text”, this source said, suggesting, nevertheless, that it might win majority support in the EP. Against a background of change at the head of the Parliament (Martin Schulz, leader of the S&D Group, will be the next President of the EP), the S&D could possibly side with the EPP in backing it. (SP/transl.rt)