28 March 2012
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EU-US relations
Visa Waiver Programme checks for all
The EU says that any new agreement should not impose additional burdens on EU member states which are already Visa Waiver Programme participants. But new legislative proposals going through in the USA would apply new checks to all EU states - including the 15 countries not needing visas.
This would involve:
- biometric screening
of passengers (all ten fingerprints)
- screening of passengers through an e-travel authorisation system
(Electronic Travel Authorisation): a "green light"
would authorise travel but a "yellow light" would mean
the traveller would have to go to the US consulate to be interviewed
- PNR data access
- immediate reporting to the USA of lost and stolen passports
(of which there are hundreds of thousands a year in the EU)
- standards for airports and baggage security
- and agreements for the repatriation of any visitors who violate
US law
The European Commission and the EU Council Presidency have repeated told the USA that any agreement must be negotiated with the EU as a whole and not on a country-by-country basis. However, the USA intends to do exactly that, the US Department for Homeland Security (DHS) has told the EU it intends to start negotiations in the autumn and look at each country, one at a time, to determine the security risk.
Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:
"The US is running rings around the EU yet again. First they promised to bring the excluded 12 EU member states into the Visa Waiver Programme then unilaterally changed their minds so that stringent security tests will be imposed on all 27 member states.
The US gots
its way on the PNR and SWIFT deals and unless the Commission
and Council finally put their feet down the same will happen
on the Visa Waiver Programme."
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