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European Parliament debate taking the Commission to court on EU-US PNR deal

01 April 2004

The European Parliament held a brief debate on Monday 19 April on the already agreed position of taking the Commission to the Court of Justice over the passing of passenger name records (PNR) to the USA. The decision to have yet another vote on taking court action was taken by the Conference of President's (the Group Leaders) on 15 April and gives the Commission a second chance to meet the parliament's demands by withdrawing its "adequacy" finding on the "Undertakings" given by the USA.

In the debate Paciotti for the PSE (Socialist group), Graham Watson for the ELDR (Liberal group), Di Lello Finuoli for the GUE (United Left group) and Monica Frassoni for the Green/EFA group all spoke in favour of taking the case to court. Only the PPE (Conservative group) spoke against. The parliament will vote on Wednesday whether to go ahead with a court action and given the close vote the first time - 229 votes to 202 with 19 abstentions - the result will depend on defections by the German and UK PSE groups who are in favour of the "deal". For background see: Observatory

Addressing the parliament on Monday Commissioner Bolkestein ignored most of the criticisms set out in the parliament's report and dealt with only two issues. The first that the agreement amended the EU's Data Protection Directive, which he said it did not - which is hardly surprising as no-one was claiming it did. The criticism is that it undermines the Directive by giving away the right to protections on the data collected and its use because the USA does not have a data protection law. The second point he made concerned an outstanding substantive point - it appears that negotiations are still going on with the USA over the transfer of data to law enforcement agencies in third countries. The USA considers that it has the right to transfer any data in its possession to whom it chooses. Mr Bolkestein argued that "clarification" on this point would not alter the agreement.

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:

"This is turning into a pantomime. The parliament has already voted on the question, the Legal Affairs Committee - as is usual - took the decision to go to court but the party leaders then decided to take it back to the plenary for another vote. If national parliaments acted like this they would quickly lose legitimacy.

And the Commission is saying that there is still outstanding issue with the USA over its demand to hand over passenger data to law enforcement agencies in any country it chooses. How the Commission can maintain this does not affect its finding of "adequacy" of the promises given by the USA is beyond rational belief"

Conference of Presidents on 15 April

2. Request for the opinion of the Court of Justice on a draft agreement with the USA on the transfer of passenger data on transatlantic flights

The Conference of Presidents

- noted a statement by the President concerning a Legal Affairs Committee recommendation (forwarded to him by means of a letter of 14 April 2004 from Mr GARGANI) in favour of Parliament’s requesting a Court of Justice opinion on whether or not the draft EU-USA agreement on the transfer of data relating to passengers on transatlantic flights was compatible with the EC Treaty;

- agreed that the Commission would first have to consider Parliament’s request for the draft ‘light’ agreement which had been proposed to be replaced by a proper international agreement;

- called upon, the Commission to make a statement on this subject on the agenda for sitting in Strasbourg on Monday, 19 April;

- noted that if the Commission did not come out clearly in favour of the approach adopted by Parliament, the President would ask the plenary to take a decision the following day on the merits of submitting a request for a Court of Justice opinion.

Commissioner Bolkestein's speech to the parliament on 19 April

"Mr Pres