Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-10-20-Speech-1-140"
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"en.20081020.15.1-140"2
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Mr President, I would like to thank all the MEPs who have spoken and I can assure you that I will certainly be present at the Council that is to take place this week, where I will report on the comments that have been made.
I would first of all like to remind you that we think the usefulness of the PNR system cannot be ignored in the context of combating terrorism and organised crime. Several of you acknowledged this frankly. Thus, we cannot do without this PNR system, and I must tell you that the Commissioner responsible for combating organised crime is not willing to abandon useful resources. We must, however, also use the system properly, and here I am in agreement with you: purpose and proportionality are vital. We must keep to the purpose and – as Mrs In 't Veld said – the purpose must be stated precisely and proportionality must be guaranteed. I must reply on one specific point to Mr Lambrinidis, who was rather vehement: in the agreement between the United States and Europe, the purpose is terrorism and crime, full stop. Firstly, then, we need to ensure proportionality and purpose.
Mrs Ludford, I was very sympathetic to what many of you said about the need to ensure data is not kept once it has been used for the purpose for which it was collected. You are right to say that we must avoid any kind of storage that might subsequently lead to uses that are unacceptable in terms of our fundamental rights.
Now I would like to turn to democratic control, firstly with regard to negotiations with countries outside the EU. We should be very clear that Articles 24 and 38 of the Treaty on European Union state that, in international negotiations, the Presidency will conduct the negotiations assisted, where necessary, by the Commission. Article 24 does not oblige the Presidency to inform or consult Parliament, and so it is for the Presidency, where applicable, to inform Parliament of the state of negotiations. That said, the Commission may, having consulted the Presidency and if an appropriate opportunity presents itself, keep Parliament informed of developments on such issues. I would like to assure you that at present no other non-EU country has requested a PNR negotiation, and so matters are clear. If this were to arise, when opening new negotiations as a new Commissioner in this sphere I would be certain to ask the Presidency to authorise me to keep the relevant committee at Parliament informed about the state of negotiations. I would like to make that commitment to you.
Thirdly – and Mr Weber has just referred to this – yes, there are 27 national systems, but these systems are not too diverse, and the national parliaments have been consulted on this point. To the best of my knowledge, the national parliaments have had the opportunity to express their opinions and to send us their comments. Mr President, I am well aware that I have not responded to all of the comments, but several well-founded remarks will be taken into consideration. What I believe, if you will, is that we cannot – and I am truly interpreting the spirit of the debate – deprive ourselves of a resource if that resource could be useful. It has been said that this effectiveness has not been demonstrated. While that is true, nonetheless some evidence has been given and, as I said a little while ago, in the information given in camera there were a number of witnesses who reported that the PNR system could be useful. I remain convinced that in the fight against organised crime it can be very useful.
That being the case, the purposes must be abided by. We must avoid data being stored and therefore we need a rather rigorous level of control. That is why in my view we need to involve – as I said at the end – all data protection bodies. On Thursday I attended a meeting on the subject of data protection organised by the majority of bodies responsible for data protection in Europe and I had the impression that now, in the Member States, there really is an increasing desire to entrust the task of data protection to independent authorities whose voices are truly likely to be heard.
That is what I wanted to say at the end of a debate that has been very interesting and useful for me and on which I will report to the Member States and their ministers. I undertake to do so."@en1
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