Brussels, 04/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The draft directive introducing the European PNR system that allows for the collection of airline passenger data for those coming into or out of the EU has proved somewhat of a chaotic dossier. On Thursday 4 June, MEPs at the Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) discussed the dossier once again.
This discussion revealed a will on the part of all MEPs to move forward on this dossier and complete it by the end of 2015. Nonetheless, it was also characterised by clear divisions between the MEPs. With more than 836 amendments introduced to his report, British Conservative, Timothy Kirkhope, believes that following the different compromise meetings that they have had with the shadow rapporteurs, things have been accomplished and that this was encouraging. The ECR MEP presented a revised report on 26 February last.
Despite his optimism, the rapporteur acknowledged that they had not been able to agree on everything and that they knew this was going to be difficult when they started out. The amendments received have been very broad-based, ranging from the proposal to quite simply scrap the draft directive, which has still not, according to the Greens/ EFA, proved a need for it, to the proposal from ALDE to transform this directive into a regulation. The political groups are also divided on whether they should include intra-EU flights or not in the mechanism or even, as suggested by the EPP, national flights.
It is also the EPP group that appears the most concerned about the future of the European PNR. During a briefing on Wednesday 3 June, on the subject of data protection reform, German MEPs Axel Voss and Monika Hohlmeier, expressed concern about the divisions at the Committee and the slow progress made in the dossier. The two MEPs criticised the fact that “there is no agreement on almost everything, such as the intra-EU flights, the list of crimes covered and the retention period”.
The two MEPs are concerned that the EP has still not managed to agree on a position and that it will be left to the member states to move forward alone on the basis of bilateral agreements. The MEPs emphasised that the EPP “wants a PNR system that works”. The group reiterated its position on Thursday morning at the LIBE Committee through the voice of Augustin Diaz de Mera MEP (Spain).
EPP wants seven-year retention period
Speaking on behalf of Voss, who was absent, the Spanish MEP again pointed out the sluggish progress at the EP and spelt out the EPP's demands. The group wants a number of things, such as tour operators and travel agencies being covered by the proposal; intra-EU flights being included; increasing the data retention period from 4 to 7 years and that the data is concealed during this period and should not be allowed to directly revert to the person in question. Only a handful of officials working at the PNR data processing unit would be allowed access to these “concealed” data over the seven-year period.
The initial Commission proposal proposed a five-year retention period and Timothy Kirkhope proposed that they distinguished between terrorist crimes, which required a five-year retention period and other crimes, which would allow for a four-year retention period.
Birgit Sippel, S&D, somewhat sarcastically asked: “Why not retain the data for 50 years? Because, after all, we never know what might happen”. The German MEP recognised that there were certain possible points of agreement with the other political groups and thought that a position could be obtained even “if I am unable to provide a date… But moving quickly does not necessarily mean constructively” The S&D wants the European PNR to only cover serious cross-border offences and only in cases “where there is a threat and that there are offences where PNR has no added value at all”, pointed out Birgit Sippel.
The ALDE group believes that this European draft directive should quite simply be transformed into a regulation, according to the amendment submitted by Sophie In 't Veld, who was astonished by the pessimistic ideas expressed by the EPP. According to the Dutch Liberal MEP, the atmosphere around the table of the shadow rapporteurs was rather positive. She also thought that convergence was possible on the list of the crimes covered but “we were against this including internal flights or even other modes of transport”. ALDE considers that they need to limit this system as much as possible and to exclusively concentrate on the data needed in a specific investigation, explained In 't Veld. ALDE also believes it is crucial that the Council does its work at the same time on personal data protection reform.
The Greens/EFA consider that the entire European PNR system still has to prove its efficiency and necessity. Jan-Philipp Albrecht said: “Collecting increasing amounts of data does not work, it is expensive and takes time to analyse the data that can turn out to be worthless”. He pointed out that “the US is doing better than us now by trying to target individuals”.
The British rapporteur still stayed upbeat and promised to do his best to reconcile the different points of view but on Thursday had still not given any indication on the timetable or the next discussion that would take place at the LIBE committee. (Solenn Paulic)