Brussels, 12/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - At a hearing on Tuesday 11 November, the MEPs on the European Parliament civil liberties (LIBE) committee poured substantial cold water on the member states' hopes of seeing the European PNR plans realised by the end of the year.
The PNR directive, that was proposed in 2011 and approved by the Council in 2012, aims to permit collection of data of air passengers travelling to or from countries outside the EU and also on intra-European flights. It was amended by the LIBE committee in April 2013 before the European Parliament voted to return the matter to committee some weeks later. At Tuesday's hearing, organised by the committee heads before Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos (Greece) addresses the committee on 3 December and sets out his vision of things, several MEPs argued from the outset that any European PNR plan had to be based on a new data retention directive.
On 8 April, the Court of Justice of the EU annulled the 2006 directive that was based on the retention of telecoms data for between six and 24 months for anti-terrorism purposes. The Court deemed the rationale behind the directive to be disproportionate and not sufficiently in line with fundamental rights. A number of MEPs pointed out that the PNR programmes are based precisely on retention of data, for five years. “I cannot see how after this (8 April) ruling, we could go on as before”, said Jan-Philipp Albrecht (Greens/EFA, Germany), who is also the rapporteur on reform of data protection rules. Cornelia Ernst (GUE/NGL, Germany) said: “We're going round in circles and always come back to the same place, but we have a clear ruling: the Court has said that retention of data did not comply with European legislation - so we can't continue”.
The Liberals, too, had reservations over the fate of the European PNR. Sophie in 't Veld (ALDE, Netherlands), for instance, was very unhappy that justification for the PNR directive “is always changing”, from “terrorism, to sexual slavery then to jihadism”. She pointed out that “the directive on data retention was imposed on us. We had three months to swallow the affront and then, to cap it all, some countries (Ed: including Germany) didn't transpose it”. If this PNR directive is “so urgent, then let's act together”, she said, aiming her comment at the member states, and she suggested that, beforehand, there should be reform of personal data protection rules.
The Social Democrats sang from the same song sheet. Birgit Sippel (Germany) suggested it would be “impossible” to have a European PNR in place by the end of 2014 without prior adoption of reform of the 1995 directive. This reform is still under discussion in the Council, chapter by chapter, even though it has already been approved by the Parliament. The Italian Presidency, however, said in Luxembourg in October that it was sure that agreement on the reform was possible in December and that the trialogues could then begin. Sippel also said that, following the annulment in April of the data retention directive, “we mustn't make the same mistake twice”.
On 3 December, new Internal Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos will set out his vision of things for the committee. At his hearing by the Parliament at the end of September, Avramopoulos suggested that he would again bring forward a directive on data retention but this time taking account of the wishes of the civil liberties committee and in line with the guidance it would give. He did not directly mention the issue of the European PNR. But a Commission representative present at the LIBER committee meeting on Tuesday 11 November indicated that “we will continue to back the 2011 PNR proposal”, though this proposal would “have to be examined in light of the criteria of the directive on data retention and in light of what the Fundamental Rights Agency says on the proportionate use of personal data”.
Timothy Kirkhope, the British Conservative rapporteur, said that he would question the LIBE committee coordinators in the coming days on the path to be taken. He highlighted the urgency of the directive. “Fifteen member states already have their own PNR systems. We need common rules”, he stated. The LIBE committee plans to hold discussions on 4 December, just after the Greek commissioner, with the French or German home affairs minister on this matter. (SP)