Brussels, 07/11/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 6 November, MEPs from across the political spectrum criticised the European Commission's plans to carry out risk assessments of air passengers entering or leaving the EU, based on their personal information. EU Security Commissioner Franco Frattini unveiled a proposal on the same day to set up a European PNR (passenger name record), along the lines of the deal struck with the United States in July 2007 (see EUROPE 9536 and 9537).
The EU's rapporteur on PNR, Sophie In't Veld (ALDE, Netherlands), published a press release issuing a strong warning to the European Commission: 'We should not be compounding the mistakes of the July PNR agreement with the US by introducing our own - at least until there is serious and irrefutable proof that such mass exchange of personal data is resulting in the arrest of terrorists.' Interpol detected 498 acts of terrorism in Europe in 2006. 706 suspects were arrested. Only one attempt led to victims - ETA's attack on an airport in Madrid in which two people died. The proposal is simply a carbon copy of the deal signed in July with the United States, regretted Dutch Green/EFA MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg, adding that at no point had the Commission actually justified the need for such measures: 'Evidence points to the contrary, as the US authorities are still able to 'pull' all sorts of information from EU carriers' databases without prior permission and without adequate safeguards on the end users or length of data retention.' Greek PES MEP Stavros Lambrinidis, a lawyer by training, said the European Commission's draft measures were 'unnecessary, unjustified and plain dangerous.' The proposal is pointless because people travelling to Europe are already subject to a raft of obligations, like those arising from the Schengen Information System (SIS), the electronic Visa Information System (VIS) and sharing of APIS information (Air Passenger Information System) like passport and flight route details. The system is unjustified because it would spread to all member states virtually identical measures that are only used in three member states (France, the United Kingdom and Denmark), he added, noting that the system was dangerous because it would allow the terrorist profiling of passengers for the first time, a practice illegal in the United States. Lambrinidis said that the EU's new anti-terror coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, who was present at the European Parliament at the start of the week, had said he (de Kerchove) 'considered profiling to be an unacceptable tool in a democratic society.' Timothy Kirkhope, the leader of the British Conservative MEPs at the EP, said: 'The dream of a Euro-Home Office is a sideshow that is not just self-defeating, but is ultimately harmful if it stifles effective cooperation between the member states.' British ALDE MEP Sarah Ludford said the proposal was 'alarming,' adding that 'the best way to tackle terrorism is to track down potential perpetrators through intense police and intelligence cooperation based on full exchanges of targetted information.' 'In the UK, anti-terror legislation has already been abused for purposes other than catching serious criminals and terrorists,' warned Syed Kamali (PES, UK). One of the only MEPs to welcome the Commission's proposal was Manfred Weber (EPP-ED, Germany), who said it went in the right direction, although the planned transposition procedure would take far too long. He said he would have preferred the proposal to go even further, suggesting the creation of a European database rather than national databases. (B.C.)