Strasbourg, 20/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is to ask the United States for guarantees on the transfer to other countries of data on air passengers from the European Union. The Commissioner for External Relations, Chris Patten, will make the announcement to the European Parliament late on Tuesday evening, although the draft agreement with the United States has been finalised since last December. "There are new elements which were not known to all Commissioners until today", the Commission's spokesperson said. The issue of transferring data to other countries had apparently not been discussed so far, and was said to have been put on the table by the US just a few weeks ago, according to a European source. The US were already referring officially to it in a press release at the end of March.
Prior to this announcement, MEPs were already very worried about the lack of safeguards as part of the agreement allowing American authorities access to the personal data of persons travelling by air from Europe to the United States. Save for a highly unlikely turnaround, the MEPs will decide on Wednesday to bring the matter before the Court of Justice. The European Parliament debate took place on Tuesday evening as we were going to press. The European Parliament and the European Commission are sticking to their diametrically opposed positions. On Wednesday, the European Parliament will come out against the agreement, in two votes, and ask for the Court's involvement. These two votes will oblige the President of the European Parliament, personally reluctant, to refer the issue to the Court, so that it may take position on the legality of the agreement. On Tuesday afternoon, the European Commission confirmed that it would not withdraw the draft agreement. It has stated that the agreement is the best available from the US, stressing the need to remain realistic in the face of the threats of the US to ban all airlines which refuse to open their files.
In fact there are two texts. Firstly, a decision by the European Commission on the fact that the degree of data protection in the United States is "adequate", i.e. it fulfils the criteria of the relevant European directive. Secondly, an international agreement, which formally draws consequences from the judgement on conformity with European rules, and thus allows the US to access data directly from the databases of airlines on Community territory.
The first vote of the Parliament on Wednesday will focus on the involvement of the Court of Justice, to ask it to give its opinion on the decided conformity with Community legislation. The European Parliament already took position on this first plank of the procedure on 31 March, judging that the degree of data protection in the United States is not "adequate", and calling upon the Commission to withdraw its draft. It stated that it reserved its right to bring the matter before the Court of Justice, if the Commission refused to do so. This is what will be decided on on Wednesday, as only the EPP-ED has pronounced itself against, during a brief initial debate on Monday evening.
In the logical follow-on from this first debate, the European Parliament will then take position on the second plank of the procedure, the conclusion of the international agreement. The report by the Dutch Johanna Boogerd-Quaak (ELDR) calls upon the Council not to conclude the agreement until the Court of Justice has returned its opinion on the data protection issue. The European Parliament is only consulted on the recognition of the level of protection and the conclusion of the agreement, but it has the power to go to the Court for its opinion.
After the attacks of 11 September, the US had demanded the right to access numerous personal data on air passengers travelling to its territory. A provisional agreement concluded in March 2002 allowed European airlines to open up their data bases. Since then, the European Commission has been negotiating with the American authorities, reaching the finalisation of a draft agreement in December 2003, on which the European Parliament will take position on Wednesday.