The decision to extend the European PNR to other types of transport, such as rail or sea transport, will not be taken during the Finnish Presidency of the EU Council.
While Helsinki wanted to open the debate on the desirability of extending the scope of the European PNR system (the directive which, since 2017, has made it possible to collect European air passenger data for flights to or from the EU and some intra-European flights for counter-terrorism purposes), a draft set of conclusions to be submitted to the EU Interior Ministers at their meeting in early December indicates that the Presidency should simply ask the Commission for an impact assessment of such an extension. This assessment could be carried out at the same time as the revision, planned for 2020, of the 2017 European PNR Directive (which is still not transposed in all Member States).
The Presidency did not seek to draw a clear conclusion on whether or not an extension was necessary, but simply wanted to survey Member States on its appropriateness, it stressed on 7 November.
According to a Presidency note from 6 November, several Member States have already expressed their reservations about the timetable for an extension, and also about the technical difficulties and compliance with the principle of proportionality of such a measure.
The provisional conclusions therefore indicate that the Commission should assess both the burden, in particular the economic burden, that a mandatory collection of new data would represent for carriers (some of them already collect in other modes of transport), the impact on users with a flexible ticket with several types of connection or the impact on fundamental rights, data protection and free movement.
The DAPIX (Working Party on Information Exchange and Data Protection) group will discuss this on 8 November. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)