EU to propose new air passenger info deal with US

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – The European Commission plans to
propose a replacement deal on Tuesday for an agreement which
obliges EU countries to provide the United States with advance
information on air passengers headed to U.S. airports.

The proposed agreement to supply the names, addresses,
payment details and telephone numbers of passengers will
replace one struck down by the European Court of Justice last
month.

The proposal is expected to be introduced within a
different legal framework but contain the same essential
details, despite objections from some EU lawmakers who have
argued that the agreement breaches privacy rights.

The European Court of Justice said the initial pact had
been wrongly struck within a legal framework pertaining to the
supply of commercial services and gave the EU until September
30 to find a solution before the deal went out of force.

However, the content of the agreement could still be
renegotiated during next year with the U.S. authorities, EU
Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said. The idea is to use
public security as the legal basis behind the replacement deal.

“The best solution could be to renegotiate content in
2007,” Frattini told the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties,
Justice and Home Affairs Committee in Strasbourg.

“We’d all like to have time to renegotiate and we will have
some time in 2007. These negotiations could be quite lengthy
… what we have to work out is how available the Americans
would be to negotiate,” he said.

The United States said the pact is essential to
Washington’s war on terrorism in the wake of the September 11,
2001 suicide hijack attacks which killed about 3,000 people in
Washington, New York and a field in rural Pennsylvania.

Not all MEPs agreed, with several complaining bitterly that
the EU’s arrangements with Washington breach privacy rights.

“I hope none of the national (EU) parliaments are now going
say yes to this. They have a responsibility to their citizens,”
said Dutch Green MEP Kathalijne Maria Buitenweg. “How do we
make sure our privacy is protected?”

The European Commission hopes that the bloc’s justice
ministers will endorse the new pact and give the Commission a
mandate to negotiate it with the United States in their next
meeting on July 24 in Brussels.

Washington has said it believes the ruling will have no
immediate impact on transatlantic air travel.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Smith in Strasbourg)