Strasbourg, 19/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - On 17 December the European Parliament approved a Spanish initiative seeking to allocate new functions to the Schengen Information System (SIS), particularly in the context of the war on terrorism. Certain guarantees are introduced concerning data protection. The Parliament has adopted the report by Carlos Coelho (EPP-ED, Portugal), which acknowledges that the current SIS has to be improved, as SIS II will only be operational in 2006.
The EP, which had simply been consulted thus approved: a decision on this subject (376 votes for, 89 against, 49 abstentions); a regulation (421 for, 48 against, 52 abstentions). It amendments aims to: ensure that Europol and Eurojust do not send countries or third part organisations information obtained from SIS; if an indication about someone is taken from SIS, SIRENE, the competent information exchange authority between Member States on emergency cases will also withdraw this information in eight working days (the Spanish initiative had wanted a year).