28 March 2012
Support our work: become a Friend of Statewatch from as little as £1/€1 per month.
European
Parliament votes to go to court on EU-US PNR deal
At its plenary session
today, Wednesday 21 April, the European Parliament voted to take
the European Commission to the Court of Justice over the proposed
EU-US deal to exchange passenger name records (PNR). 276 voted
in favour, 260 against, 13 abstentions to refer the PNR agreement
to the ECJ for opinion under Article 300(6). The report on the
issue from Johanna Boogerd-Quaak, MEP was referred back to the
Committee on Citizens' Rights and Freedoms who said that "in
order to be logical the EP should not take a position when the
report states that the Court should rule on whether the agreement
is compatible with of the Treaty. Second, if we were to adopt
my report and reject the agreement, the Court could consider
that the Parliament has already made up its mind and is not really
interested in obtaining the opinion of the Court." Parliament
voted by 299 in favour, 218 against and 6 abstenstions to refer
the Johanna L.A. BOOGERD-QUAAK (ELDR, NL) report on the transfer
of passenger data back to the committee. The reasoning is that
Parliament cannot endorse or reject the agreement as long as
it does not know the European Court of Justice position on it.
Before the vote MEPs came under enormous pressure to back the
deal from the Commission and their national governments. Three
MEPs circulated a letter calling on colleagues to back the recommendation
to go to the court:
"Dear Colleague,
Today the European Parliament will vote on whether to ask the
European Court of Justice to rule on the legality of the EU/US
agreement on the transfer of PNR data on air travellers to the
USA. This step has become necessary to resolve a conflict between
Parliament and Commission, which has at its heart fundamental
questions of privacy and security. The Court will be asked to
act as a lawyer would, advising a client who is preparing to
sign an important contract.
The recommendation from the Legal Affairs Committee to refer
this matter to the ECJ is neither obstructionist nor frivolous.
It is not gesture politics and it is not anti-Americanism. Some
data demanded by American authorities and currently surrendered
by European airlines and travel agents is not only classified
as sensitive in Europe, but once stored in the United States
there are no guarantees that it will not be shared or even transferred
again to third countries. Europeans will have no effective right
to access or correct this data or seek judicial redress for its
misuse. They will be subject to American administrative and unilateral
undertakings without commensurate rights under it. All the national
authorities competent for data protection in Europe have declared
these transfers incompatible with European privacy laws.
Last, but not least, a point on which we need a clarification
from the Court is the fact that the agreement in question creates
a new competence for Community institutions and thus modifies
the Community Legislation adopted by the European Parliament.
According to the Treaty this agreement should have been submitted
to us under the "assent" procedure and not only for
a simple non-binding opinion under a deadline of less than 4
weeks. If one adds the fact that no national Parliament would
ever be able to take a position in such a short time, at least
on the transfer of its competences to the Community, one could
ask whether our institutions respect the protocol of the Treaty
on subsidiarity and proportionality. Yet the Commission and the
Council have gone out of their way to avoid effective parliamentary
scrutiny at both the national and European level.
The war against terrorism requires a number of compromises from
Europeans. Surrendering all their rights to privacy is not one
of them. Until we are offered better guarantees that these rights
can be protected, we are justified to being critical of the conduct
of the Commission and the substance of its agreement. For this
reason we have supported, and invite you to support, the call
by Parliament's JURI committee for recourse to the European Court
of Justice as a precautionary measure.
Yours sincerely
Graham Watson MEP
Enrique Baron Crespo MEP
Johanna Boogerd-Quaak MEP, rapporteur
Prior to the vote External Affairs Commissioner, Chris Patten,
urged the parliament not to go to court: Speech
He said that "in the "real world" there had to
be "compromises" and like Mr Bolkestein on Monday said
that the parliament did not have a case as the agreement did
not involve amending the 1995 Data Protection Directive - which
is not what the parliament is arguing, they are saying that i)
the Commission has wrongly judged the "Undertakings"
by the USA as being "adequate" and that ii) there should
be a proper international agreement on which the views of the
parliament would be binding (they are only being "consulted"
on the current "light international agreement".
Full-text of Commission's
proposal and the US "Undertakings" (pdf)
Full background documentation is on Statewatch's: Observatory
Spotted an error? If you've spotted a problem with this page, just click once to let us know.
Statewatch does not have a corporate view, nor does it seek to create one, the views expressed are those of the author. Statewatch is not responsible for the content of external websites and inclusion of a link does not constitute an endorsement. Registered UK charity number: 1154784. Registered UK company number: 08480724. Registered company name: The Libertarian Research & Education Trust. Registered office: MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH. © Statewatch ISSN 1756-851X. Personal usage as private individuals "fair dealing" is allowed. We also welcome links to material on our site. Usage by those working for organisations is allowed only if the organisation holds an appropriate licence from the relevant reprographic rights organisation (eg: Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK) with such usage being subject to the terms and conditions of that licence and to local copyright law.