Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-24-Speech-2-481"
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"en.20090324.36.2-481"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I value the commitment of the rapporteur very highly and would like to thank her and everyone involved very warmly for their excellent work over recent years. Nevertheless, I will be abstaining from voting, mainly because I do believe that taking fingerprints and the entire process of using biometric identifiers is out of proportion to the size of the problem. I think that the desire of home affairs ministers and security authorities to collect as much personal data as possible is deeply questionable.
I know how difficult it was to extract the compromise from the Council which exempts children under the age of 12 from the obligation to provide fingerprints. However, we all know that this will only apply provided that there are no comprehensive studies in place which prove that children’s fingerprints are reliable. The political discussion about whether babies’ and small children’s fingerprints are really needed is not yet over.
The regulations on outsourcing also cause me some concern. Strict, standardised regulations are certainly needed, as some Member States are already using external service providers. It is understandable that in many strictly limited cases it can be useful to transfer the processing of visa applications to external service providers. However, this must not be done at the expense of the applicants and of data security. I do not believe that the compromise agreed with the Council in this respect is adequate. Both the Legal Service of the Parliament and the European Data Protection Supervisor have indicated the risks involved in outsourcing, when the external service provider is not in an area under diplomatic protection. Unfortunately, the Council has ignored these concerns.
A further problem is the service charge involved in outsourcing. I believe it is wrong to pass this charge on to the applicants. The visa fee of EUR 60 is already too high and very difficult for people from third countries to afford. If a charge of up to EUR 30 is added, this does not correspond with my idea of an open and hospitable Europe. Undoubtedly it can make things easier in the case of very large countries not to have to travel halfway across the country to a consulate to apply for a visa, but instead to be able to submit the application to an external service provider. However, in my opinion, the higher charges would immediately cancel out this benefit.
I would like to thank everyone for their work on this dossier over recent years."@en1
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