Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-09-Speech-1-133"
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"en.20070709.18.1-133"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank all those who have spoken, even though I do not agree with most of their speeches, but you know that I always speak my mind with absolute frankness.
I do not share the opinion of those who say, ‘We should do other things first and then worry about terrorism.’ Terrorism is a serious and present threat. I think this agreement could have been better if we had been negotiating it alone but, since agreements are made between two sides, it is a compromise and, in the spirit of compromise, the Council of Ministers approved it unanimously. In my view it was right to do so, and the German Presidency was given due recognition for all the hard work it put into this agreement.
It is a binding agreement which will certainly help to fight terrorism or, better still, to prevent it. No member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs should forget that the US Secretary of Homeland Security came to Parliament and gave you some information and, in some cases, specific facts about terror suspects who were stopped thanks to PNR data. There were just a few cases, but they concern people who were stopped thanks to PNR data and were later involved in bomb attacks elsewhere in the world.
Despite all the impact assessments that we have conducted and may yet conduct, I believe that the agreement in question, which provides legal certainty, is infinitely better than the absence of an agreement. I am sorry that we do not agree on this point, but I have a duty to be sincere.
Ladies and gentlemen, agreements are made between two parties. The United States has the power to accept or reject an agreement. We had a duty, first of all, to ask the Council of Ministers for a mandate, which we were given and within which we have operated. The agreement has been approved by the Member States – after all, they granted us the power to negotiate – so they clearly thought that having this agreement was immensely better than the possibility of not having any agreement at all after 31 July this year, which is actually in a few days’ time.
Quite frankly, I should like to have heard those who criticised this agreement so harshly make at least one comment on the consequences of not having any agreement at all. Can any of you imagine that the airlines would have negotiated bilaterally with the United States and achieved a better level of personal data protection? I do not think anyone can even imagine that that might have happened. The protection of European citizens’ personal data would have been in serious jeopardy without the certainty of legally binding rules.
As you know, for the first time we have a binding agreement, unlike the previous one, which involved no binding commitments but just unilateral ones. In this agreement, we have recognised the ‘push’ principle as a fundamental criterion, as this Parliament has demanded on several occasions. The fact that some airlines have said that they are not yet in a position to switch over from pull to push does not depend on either the United States or Europe, but rather on the fact that some of them have so far been unable to change system on technical grounds. Since others have been able to do so, it must depend on their technical ability and willingness, and we shall help them to make the move.
We have set the ‘push’ system as a criterion; if, however, an airline says it is technically unable to implement it, other proposals need to be examined. Can we deny that airline landing rights? I am ready to examine any proposals, but we have also set a deadline, which is the end of this year. That seems technically feasible, since IATA (the International Air Transport Association) has told us that it is reasonable to expect all airlines to be technically capable of introducing the new system within six months. It is purely down to technical reasons.
We have established that sensitive data will be destroyed within 30 days, a measure that had not been agreed previously, and we have established that the US Privacy Act will apply to European citizens, something that had been mentioned in many debates here in Parliament as an essential condition: European citizens will be able to complain under the same law as US citizens if the US Department of Homeland Security misuses their data. That is something that did not exist before, and I am giving you actual facts.
Mr Lambrinidis has rightly mentioned third countries. It is true that the data in question can be passed on to third countries but, as you know, it is laid down that there will be the same power of control over the correct use of such data. The fact that they are passed on to a third country does not affect the power of control: the third country will use the data in accordance with the very same rules laid down in this agreement and we shall retain the same power to check whether the data have been used properly or not.
Someone asked about the possibility of terminating the agreement. The possibility does of course exist, in the event of a substantial breach, and you are perfectly well aware of the legal basis adopted. Article 24 of the Treaty is an intergovernmental basis and not, unfortunately, a Community basis, because the European Union Court of Justice has so ruled. An agreement had previously been negotiated on a basis that allowed for your full participation as the European Parliament. Unfortunately, the Court of Justice ruling established that the legal basis was incorrect and, as you know, everything stems from that ruling.
It is a fact, Mr Lambsdorff, that many Member States are not complying with European measures, which instead ought to be fully implemented. You know perfectly well not only that I published the state of the art country by country just a few days ago, but also that I have initiated infringement procedures, and I do not think I need to wait for the outcome of those to adopt useful proposals to combat terrorism."@en1
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