Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-09-Speech-1-129"
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"en.20070709.18.1-129"2
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"Mr President, first of all I note that the Council Presidency is absent during this important debate, which is remarkable as it was responsible for the negotiations. I am therefore thankful for the presence of Mr Frattini.
Finally, I would like to recommend that the PPE-DE Group support the joint motion for a resolution that we will negotiate tomorrow, read the agreement very carefully and read between the lines, because it is not as good as it looks.
However, I would like to start by objecting to the implicit link that Mr Frattini makes with the failed terrorist attacks in the UK last week. I find that distasteful: it has nothing to do with PNR.
That brings me to an important point that this House has emphasised many times and that is the need for an evaluation. We need evidence that the use of PNR data leads to greater security and that they are not used only to catch people who commit document fraud, drug smuggling or whatever. We need evidence and not just anecdotes.
Mr Frattini says that this is a good agreement. Well, it serves two purposes: firstly, to legalise the transfer of data by carriers and, secondly, to provide, as he has said, a high level of data protection. Well, it fails miserably on the second objective; it is not legally binding, it explicitly states that it does not confer any rights on any person or any party. Well, how much clearer can it get? Then, it looks good superficially, but it is full of loopholes, open definitions and exceptions, when it comes to purpose limitation, for example, or the retention periods, which are going up to 15 years and maybe even more, and they will be applied retroactively. I am not a lawyer, but that strikes me as distinctly funny.
The reduction from 34 to 19 data is an insult to our intelligence. If you look at the data, it is not a reduction: the 34 are merged into 19 data fields. I am not stupid. We may not have any powers here but we are not stupid.
Then with pull to push: we got that promise back in 2004. We still do not have it! It is technically feasible, so why do we not have it?
Democratic oversight is completely lacking. This House may not have competences any more, but the national parliaments are completely excluded. Some of the national parliaments will get to approve the agreement, but they can only say ‘yes’ or ‘yes’, because they do not have time, they do not get all the necessary information – only very summary information – and it has just been pointed out that if one national parliament says ‘no’ then there is no agreement and no parliament will want to take that responsibility, so they have their backs against the wall.
With regard to the Privacy Act, it is good that it now covers European citizens. We asked for that many times. However, we all know that the Bush Administration uses all sorts of exceptions and exemptions to the Privacy Act, which, incidentally, affects American citizens as it does European citizens.
To conclude, concerning Mr Frattini’s proposal on a European PNR scheme – which is not a real proposal because he floated it at a press conference rather than putting a real proposal before this House, I think the timing – last week – was wrong and I would like to know what the justification is for such a scheme. We do not even know what purpose the PNR agreement with the United States serves. We do not know how many terrorists were caught, how many attacks were prevented and how many false positives there have been. We have insisted on an evaluation before signing a new agreement."@en1
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