Not all members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties agreed with the amendments made by Jorge Buxadé Villalba (ECR, Spain) on the revision of the regulation on Eurodac, the biometric database of asylum seekers, which the Commission has proposed to expand in its New Pact on Migration and Asylum and which is intended to become a large database on migration, on asylum applications, but also on returns.
The Spaniard presented his work in committee on Tuesday 13 April, with the aim of voting on the report in June. A previous reform presented in 2016 and already provisionally agreed upon had already incorporated the idea of taking biometric data from children over 6 years of age and using force for adults who do not wish to hand over this data when arriving at the external borders.
These elements remained in the work of the Spaniard; the new proposal, on the other hand, provides for the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) to have access to Eurodac from now on, and Eurodac data will be combined with data from other information systems such as the SIS or the Entry/Exit system (interoperability). In addition, a new data category is created for people rescued at sea.
During the discussion, the S&D group reiterated its opposition to these coercive measures. The group also does not want the possibility to collect these data in third countries and also rejects the creation of this new category of data in Eurodac.
The Spanish rapporteur is not in favour of this either and wants the category to be abolished, believing that it would be a “breath of fresh air” for migrants.
As for the Greens/EFA group, Belgian MEP Saskia Bricmont noted a rush to vote in June when Eurodac is also linked to the regulation on pre-clearance of migrants at external borders and “work is ongoing”.
The Belgian delegation is also not in favour of lowering the age of data collection and will propose amendments to this effect. The deadline for tabling amendments is 21 April.
Link to the work: https://bit.ly/32i64dD (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)