Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-06-Speech-3-148"
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"en.20070606.16.3-148"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Frattini, ladies and gentlemen, I should like, if I may, to make a few brief personal observations on the Prüm Initiative, which Parliament is debating and scrutinising today and tomorrow, and on which I was rapporteur for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.
The Council’s proposal, presented by Parliament three months ago in almost forensic detail, was debated and analysed with bewildering speed by the committee. To this end – with the constant and total commitment, skill and dedication of the Committee’s secretariat – the idea of a public hearing was proposed, involving all public and private actors, in order to gain a suitable understanding of their concerns. This is a process that seeks to strike the right balance between the demands of effective police cooperation and the defence and promotion of fundamental rights.
This exercise in reflection is extremely important given the nature of this proposal, which establishes mechanisms facilitating action on criminal matters and criminal investigations, but which is potentially damaging to the citizens’ rights and freedoms, an aspect that cannot and must not be overlooked.
As rapporteur dealing with an initiative of such importance and visibility, my main concerns were, accordingly, to strike a balance between, on the one hand, the demands of effective policing in the fight against the main threats to the very foundations of the EU, namely terrorism and crime, and, on the other, the protection of people’s fundamental rights.
Clearly, striking such a balance and transposing it into a text to be accepted by an overwhelming majority of MEPs represented in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, who come from a range of political backgrounds, was no easy task, but was certainly a rewarding one. I honestly believe that the proposals to be put before this Chamber substantially improve upon the draft submitted by the Council. I therefore welcome the fact that the amendments we agreed on, which were the result of a broad consensus among the various groups represented in Parliament and of close collaboration between the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs, were adopted almost unanimously by the committee, with just one abstention. I now hope that they will receive a similarly positive response from this Chamber.
Among the amendments that have been tabled, I should like to highlight the following amendments for their importance to the economy as distinct from what I feel should be subject to a formal framework decision: greater harmonisation of the conditions of access to biometric databases, ensuring that such access is limited to investigations, and, in the case of fingerprint data, to the prevention of serious criminal offences; clear definition of rules applying to joint operations; establishment of strict necessity criteria so that the transmission of personal data is legitimate, especially when it comes to the most delicate situations, major events and preventing terrorist attacks; extending the scope of the chapter on data protection to all forms of processing data, ensuring compliance with all recommendations put forward by the European data protection supervisor; implementation of a maximum period for keeping personal data; establishment of specific safeguards prohibiting the processing of sensitive data that may be used for the purpose of ethnic profiling; strengthening Parliament’s role in following up the proposal for a decision, in particular when implementation and assessment measures are adopted; and lastly, clarification of the relationship between this proposal for a decision and the proposal for a framework decision on data protection under the third pillar, the latter always being a general regulatory framework in the matter, in any situation.
Lastly, I should like to acknowledge the importance of integrating intervention mechanisms introduced by the Prüm Treaty – undeniably important mechanisms in the fight against terrorism and organised crime – into the EU’s body of law. I must say, however, that I am worried about how the Council will vote on Parliament’s opinion.
I should like to conclude by saying that the adoption of the framework decision aimed at stepping up cross-border cooperation, in particular in the fight against terrorism and crime, will clearly lack democratic legitimacy if Parliament’s role is either partially or totally ignored. That would do nothing to enhance the citizens’ trust in the Union when it comes to the process of building the Community; in fact, it would have quite the opposite effect."@en1
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