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EU to propose new air passenger info deal with US

Posted on: Monday, 12 June 2006, 16:02 CDT

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)

Source: REUTERS

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