Brussels, 19/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - By end June, the Council is expected to authorise the European Commission to renegotiate the agreement on transfer to the United States of personal data concerning airline passengers, cancelled in May by the European Court of Justice, the Commission announced on Monday. The decision is expected to be taken at the Environment Council in Luxembourg on 26 and 27 June, European sources have told EUROPE. With reference to the Court's decision, the current agreement should cease to apply on 30 September 2006. “It is therefore urgent to begin renegotiation of the agreement”, a spokesman for the Commission, Friso Roscam Abbing, said. On Thursday, Coreper will tackle the question with a view to reaching unanimous agreement. It should be noted that the EU only had fifteen members when the previous agreement was reached. On Monday, the European Commission announced it had called on the current 25 members to entrust it with a new brief for re-negotiating the current agreement that will nonetheless remain in force during the three months following this denunciation. According to the official text, the Commission recommends that the Council authorise its presidency, assisted by the Commission, to negotiate an agreement on the use of passenger name records (PNRs) to prevent and combat terrorism and transnational crime, especially organised crime. The Commission also recommended that Member States denounce the agreement concluded with the United States by the end of the month. As pointed out earlier (EUROPE 9202), the Commission did not wish to touch the substance of the agreement previously concluded with Washington, as the new proposal only provides for the legal base of the text to slide from the first to the third pillar. A European source has said that, reaching a new agreement with the United States should not pose a problem in so far as the only thing that counts for them is substance. Last week in Strasbourg, MEPs from the European Parliament Committee on Citizens' Freedoms had told Commissioner Frattini that they did not wish to have merely an advisory role in respect of the new agreement envisaged by the Commission (EUROPE 9211). Faced with this protest, Mr Roscam Abbing stressed that the Commission regretted the fact that the EP had been pushed to one side but said it was to follow what the Court of Justice had stipulated, especially regarding the change in the legal base.