Brussels, 02/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 1 April, the Mexican authorities said that they had pushed back the deadline imposed on European airlines for delivering PNR data for their passengers until 1 July 2015. This should provide the EU with the time to develop a legal basis for negotiating an EU-Mexico agreement on the transfer of PNR data. This agreement was announced on 27 March by Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos.
The deadline was previously set for 1 April 2015 and the airlines risked fines as high as €30,000. Following discussions at the end of last week, it was agreed that the Mexican authorities would abandon this 1 April deadline in exchange for a public commitment from the EU to start working on preparations for a legislative agreement, similar to the ones negotiated with the US, Canada and Australia. This deal now sealed, the European airlines will simply continue with the transfer of the more common API data, which they have been doing since 2004, whilst awaiting he introduction of the transfer of PNR data. There are, nonetheless, a number of questions still pending, starting with the very short deadline left for the European legislators to finalise the legal basis. Although the Commission is hoping for the ministers at the June JHA Council to adopt the negotiating mandate for this future agreement, the European Parliament still has to give its assent to this kind of international agreement. The Greek Commissioner also promised MEPs that no EU-Mexico PNR agreement would be finalised before the European Court of Justice had given its opinion on the agreement negotiated with Canada. According to procedure, it will be after the Council's adoption of the negotiating mandate proposed by the Commission (the one sought for June) that the latter will be able to begin discussions with Mexico. Once these have been finalised, the draft agreement will be submitted for Council and Parliament approval.
With uncertainty surrounding the timetable, leaving the Council, EP and the European Court of Justice only four months to play their part, there are also a number of questions the European airlines are still asking in the event that nothing is finalised by 1 July. Will it be enough that the negotiating mandate has been adopted by the Council for the delivery of the PNR data to begin on 1 July 2015 for their passengers to Mexico? Will this be done whilst waiting for the finalisation of negotiations and the formal endorsement of the agreement by the legislators? Is there not a risk that these could be considered retrospectively to be in violation of European law if the Parliament and European Court of Justice ultimately reject the negotiations with Mexico? On Thursday 2 April, all these questions were still awaiting an answer. (Solenn Paulic)