Brussels, 08/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - European Parliament, which is to hold its plenary session from Monday 11 to Thursday 14 April, will be putting to the vote the long-awaited 'European PNR', the tool to collect the personal data of airline passengers, which the member states of the EU have been calling for even more insistently since the terrorist attacks in Brussels (see EUROPE 11519).
At a press conference on Friday 8 April, the spokesperson of the S&D group at the European Parliament said that it was an extremely positive thing that this vote on the 'European PNR' is taking place at the same time as the vote on the reform of data protection, which the Social Democrats have never let up calling for. The ALDE group got behind this position, stating that it was prepared to adopt the two texts. The EPP and ECR groups hope for a positive vote. For its part, the GUE/NGL warned that it would be voting against.
The two texts will be debated on Wednesday, with a vote scheduled for Thursday, with the Council of the EU having just enacted the reform of data protection. The French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, is to visit the EP on Tuesday, aiming amongst other things to ensure that the 'European PNR' gets through without a hitch. He will be attending the conference of the presidents of the groups.
The anti-terrorism measures in the wake of the Brussels attacks will be the subject of a separate debate on Tuesday afternoon.
Following the Panama Papers scandal, this dossier has been added to the agenda. A debate is therefore to be held on Tuesday afternoon. This will coincide with the proposal the European Commission is planning to present in Strasbourg on public country-by-country reporting, to which changes have been made in the light of the scandal (see other article). The MEPs will discuss the effectiveness of the existing measures and the directive on money-laundering.
On Wednesday morning, a debate will be held on the results of the European Council of 18 and 19 March, where the EU-Turkey agreement was sealed. At the committee on Civil Liberties, the MEPs expressed a number of reservations on the subject (see EUROPE 11527).
The new Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will address the MEPs with a speech at noon on Monday.
Finally, the EP is to vote on: the 'business secrecy' directive, which amongst other things provides protection for whistleblowers under restrictive conditions (see EUROPE 11478); a progress report from Turkey on its path to EU accession; a resolution calling for a centralised asylum system; the motion of objection of the committee on the environment for the authorisation for glyphosate, a chemical pesticide categorised by the WHO as probably carcinogenic - although EFSA concludes that it is probably not (see EUROPE 11517). (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)