Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-06-Speech-3-152"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20070606.18.3-152"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
".
Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples