The Parliament-Council negotiators for the draft proposals to set up a centralised 'ECRIS-TCN' system to rapidly check whether a member state holds criminal records for people from outside the EU are divided over whether to include double-nationality individuals (see EUROPE 11919).
After the third trialogue meeting on Tuesday 24 April, agreement had not yet been reached on this issue, explains a close source.
A working document from the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU drafted after the second trialogue talks at the end of March and the technical meeting on 10 April, reveals that there has been little change in views despite the talks ‘in a constructive atmosphere.’.
The European Parliament is firmly opposed to including identify information about EU citizens who hold the nationality of a non-EU country so as not to introduce discrimination among EU citizens (see EUROPE 11964).
There has been no change in rhetoric at the Council and European Commission, who talk about ‘filling gaps’ in the current system and preventing someone from the EU ‘hiding’ behind a non-EU nationality,
The Bulgarian Presidency wishes to continue with this approach, explaining: ‘We will continue to try to (collect arguments and) convince Parliament.’
While its arguments have not convinced Parliament, the Presidency ‘wonders’ whether a possible solution might be to not keep fingerprints in the ECRIS-TCN system for EU nationals who have a non-EU passport as well.
Sofia hopes that in this way, the same information would be gathered for all EU nationals as in the ECRIS system, for which digital fingerprints are only provided if they are available. The Bulgarian Presidency says this measure might meet Parliament’s concerns and although not perfect, it may be a possible solution.
Facial images. Another source of division between Parliament and the Council and also within each EU institution Parliament is the use of facial images.
The Presidency says that Parliament might agree to keep Article 10 on implementation acts adopted by the European Commission in its current state – apart from the question of deadlines that need further talks – if the use of facial images is decided using the delegated act procedure, as proposed by Parliament.
The same source says the Presidency has been given a positive response to this idea, but no final decision has yet been taken.
Issues remaining to be settled are differing views about the use of the ECRIS-TCN for ends other than criminal proceedings and a raft of technical issues.
Negotiations will resume on Wednesday 16 May at political level. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)