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EU: EP budgets committee backs up draft report calling for tough new asylum fingerprinting measures

06 March 2017

EU  
Call for tough asylum fingerprinting measures backed in draft EP budget committee opinion
6.3.17
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A draft opinion on the new Eurodac Regulation written for the European Paliament's budgets committee calls for the adoption of "an EU procedure for forced fingerprinting," taking a similar line to an earlier draft report produced for the civil liberties (LIBE) committee.

The opinion was drafted by Gérard Deprez, a Belgian MEP for the liberals and democrats (ALDE) group, and is being voted on by the budgets committee (BUDG) today.

The draft opinion, which will serve as the budget committee's opinion into the LIBE committee's report, calls for removal measures taken by Member States to be included in the Eurodac database, for a study on the need to harmonise biometric identifiers and ensure interoperability in EU justice and home affairs databases, and: "Even if the budgetary impact is non-existent, the rapporteur supports an EU procedure for forced fingerprinting."

The civil liberties committee report, which will form the basis for the European Parliament's negotiations with the Council on the text of the new Eurodac Regulation, will be the subject of a vote on 9 March.

The draft proposes that Member States should be obliged to introduce "effective, proportionate and dissuasive" administrative sanctions for asylum-seekers and irregular migrants who demonstrate "non-compliance with the fingerprinting process and capturing a facial image."

See: DRAFT OPINION of the Committee on Budgets for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of ‘Eurodac’ for the comparison of fingerprints for the effective application of [Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person], for identifying an illegally staying third-country national or stateless person and on requests for the comparison with Eurodac data by Member States’ law enforcement authorities and Europol for law enforcement purposes (recast)(pdf)

Background: Eurodac Regulation: Parliament committee report takes hard line on mandatory biometric registration of asylum-seekers (Statewatch News Online, 9 February 2017)

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