Luxembourg, 09/07/2015(Agence Europe) - On Thursday 9 July in Luxembourg, EU Ministers for Home Affairs meeting up for an informal meeting, warmly welcomed the EP Civil Liberties Committee's (LIBE) confirmation that the draft directive on the European “passenger name record” (PNR) programme would be put to a vote on Wednesday 15 July.
The LIBE Committee effectively decided its agenda on 9 July and is therefore expected to put the report from Timothy Kirkhope (United Kingdom, ECR) to a vote. If it is adopted at the committee, MEPs will be able to respect the commitment made in February by the EU ministers for home affairs to finalise a European PNR system by the end of 2015.
Etienne Schneider, the Luxembourg minister for internal security, explained that this dossier was “one of the Luxembourg Presidency objectives”. The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said that he was confident about the direction the directive was going in and said that by the end of 2015, this directive is likely to have been adopted. Speaking in Luxembourg, he commented, “we are on the right track”.
The Commission's draft European PNR project was rejected for the first time in 2013 by the Civil Liberties Committee. The project seeks to enable European airlines to transmit personal data from their passengers travelling to and from member states or boarding intra-European flights, to the law enforcement agencies.
EU ministers for home affairs and the European Commission relaunched the dossier following the attacks in Paris and Copenhagen in January and February 2015 and have exercised renewed pressure on the EP in this connection. MEPs have insisted that their agreement is accompanied by new private life safeguards. (Solenn Paulic)