Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-07-Speech-4-020"
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"en.20060907.4.4-020"2
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"Mr President, I believe that the Council – which is not present, even though the Vice-President is here to represent the Commission – will eventually be aware that this House, all of whose groups have joined together to speak with one voice, certainly does – albeit to varying degrees – see the need for negotiations between us and the United States, as equals, on arrangements relating to data protection, and indeed demands that such negotiations should take place. That should give the other institutions something to think about.
The ruling by the European Court of Justice has not got us much further. While it does tell us that we chose the wrong legal basis, it does not tell us how we could have made a better job of it, although that, indeed, is not what the Court is there to do; it is for us to take care how we go about doing things.
I would like to say something about the things we need to do in order to put this into practice. I think we are going to end up in a whole load of difficulties if we carry on as we are doing. For a start, and quite apart from the fact that we would rather do this at the European level, rather than having the nation states doing it each off their own bat, I would like to express my doubt as to whether we really do have the legal power to do it. I have to say, quite honestly, that I am not sure about this. Even if we do, the question arises of whether we can do it within the time allowed for implementation.
If we in fact do opt for either the third pillar or a combination of second and third pillar as a means of moving this process on, we will meet with problems of implementation, in most Member States at any rate. We will have problems with their constitutions; I can say that in the case of Germany, and I am sure that most of the Member States will find further obstacles in terms of their constitutional law when it comes to implementing this agreement, and so it is in the individual Member States that the necessary conditions must be put in place first of all.
There will also be problems relating to the laws on the protection of data, since the European Union – with the exception of the first pillar – has no really effective means of data protection, which means that it is the Member States who will have to prepare the ground where data protection and the legislative process are concerned.
What I fear, then, is that the entry into force will be delayed for a bit by quite a few cases brought either before the European Court of Human Rights or the ECJ itself – provided that that is a legal possibility, which will depend on the legal position – or before the national constitutional courts, and so we should, leaving considerations of substance to one side for the moment, apply the greatest of care when dealing with the formal aspects in order to save ourselves further embarrassment of the kind that we cannot afford on the international stage, and certainly not in relation to this issue.
By way of conclusion, one has to consider the economic damage that would ensue if the United States were to threaten to prevent our airlines from landing there if we did not sign this agreement, and I would also like to ask why nobody within the European Union has ventured to remind our trans-Atlantic partners of this."@en1
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