Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-01-Speech-3-153"
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"en.20041201.15.3-153"2
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"Mr President, the 19 amendments tabled by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs are primarily concerned with data protection issues. They are also concerned with reviewing the comitology procedure, so that Parliament and the authorities responsible for data protection are involved in the decision-making process.
The Article 29 Working Party for the Directive was consulted on the proposal, and most of the amendments relating to data protection were already taken on board during the Council’s work. Nor can the Commission endorse these amendments: either they were incorporated into the version under discussion at the Council, or some of them do not comply with the legal basis, which only covers the security characteristics of passports.
As regards revising the comitology procedure, the amendments cannot be accepted, because this procedure is the result of an interinstitutional agreement and a Council decision in 1998-1999 laying down the general procedure applicable to committees. These instruments also lay down Parliament’s right to participate and I do not see how there can be any derogation from these.
A further amendment has been tabled today during the plenary session by the rapporteur, Mr Coelho, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats. It concerns the second biometric identifier to be integrated into the passport, namely fingerprints. In its proposal, the Commission had left it to the Member States’ discretion whether or not to take their citizens’ fingerprints, insofar as some of them did not want to adopt such a policy at that time for political reasons. Nevertheless, the Council unanimously decided, on 25 October 2004, to make fingerprints similarly compulsory at the latest 36 months after the adoption of the technical specifications.
The Commission considers, in fact, that this unanimous decision clearly symbolises a new political will to harmonise across the Member States the ability to ensure – on the basis of elements such as fingerprints, which are more reliable than simple digital images – that identity document holders are the individuals referred to therein. This approach, in other words, has in fact overridden the initial proposal, which made fingerprints optional. EU Member States have in fact shown their political will to have two biometric identifiers. In other words, they have, politically speaking, chosen between the two options.
To conclude, I feel that joint effort on the part of all the institutions is crucial to step up security in the Union, whilst ensuring that the legitimate rights of law-abiding citizens are respected. I am grateful to Parliament for expressing its opinion so promptly. This will make it possible for the regulation to be adopted by the end of the year and for us to keep to the timetable set by the Council in March 2004."@en1
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