Brussels, 07/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday the European Parliament approved an important text on personal data protection in the field of police and legal cooperation. This vote finally took place after the Council proposed draft legislation that partly met the expectations already formulated by Parliament. The draft framework decision formulated by the Commission had already been the subject of a Parliamentary opinion in June 2006, in which a certain number of amendments were introduced to improve it (EUROPE 941 and 9274). The Council, however, despite the commitment from several presidencies in favour of swift adoption, prevented the dossier going any further. Parliament feared that the level of protection planned for the text would be less than what already existed. In a press statement, the rapporteur for the draft, Martine Roure (France, PES) declared, “this European text had been very much awaited. It fills a loophole in the Community legal system given that citizens' personal data exchanged in the context of police and legal cooperation will be protected”. She also welcomed the fact that the Council had been fully involved with the EP in these negotiations by formally re-consulting it (MEPs are only consulted as a rule because it was dealing with an intergovernmental matter). Roure added that, “I regret, however, that the Council had not agreed to recognise the same level of protection for data exchanged in each of the member states, which would have produced European harmonisation of private data protection for citizens in the Union”. The MEP is therefore proposing that the Council returns to the question during an assessment of legislation in 2010. Parliament also criticised the text presented by the Council for not referring to the need to ensure a sufficient level of data protection in exchanges with third countries, a particularly important question in the context of discussions linked to Swift and the passenger data agreements (PNR). (bc)