The European Commission is moving ahead in its efforts to comply with the annulment by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) of the agreement between the European Community and the US Government on the transfer of passenger name records (PNR).
The Commission adopted on 19 June 2006 two initiatives in order to comply with the ECJ decision. The first initiative is to recommend to the Council to terminate the Agreement with the US by the end of this month, since under the international law, the agreement remains in force for a period of 90 days after it is denounced by either party.
The second initiative is to ask the Council to give an authorisation to open negotiations for a new Agreement with the Unites States on the basis of Article 38, Title VI of the Treaty on European Union. The Commission considers that Title VI (3rd Pillar) is the correct legal basis for an International Agreement for matters dealing with public security and criminal law matters. It also emphasises that "the content of the current Agreement has not been criticised by the Court and should therefore continue to offer the same level of safeguards regarding the legal certainty for air carriers, the respect of human rights and the purposes for which PNR data may be used."
In practice, this will mean a defeat of the European Parliament, which challenged before the ECJ the substance of the agreement as well. According to a Commission spokesman regarding the new proposed agreement: "There is no formal role for the Parliament to play."
Supporting the Parliament's position, Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor considered that "the judgment seems to have created a loophole in the protection of European citizens whereby their data are used for law enforcement purposes."
The Commission hopes the member states will accept a new deal to be set up by the beginning of July and that they will not conclude in separate deals with the United States.
The Commission adopts two initiatives to comply with the Ruling of the
European Court of Justice on the transfer of PNR to the United States of
America (19.06.2006)
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/800&...
MEPs to be sidelined in revived airline data deal (19.06.2006)
http://euobserver.com/9/21904
PNR: EDPS first reaction to the Court of Justice judgment (30.05.2006)
http://www.edps.eu.int/Press/EDPS-2006-8-EN_PNR.pdf
EDRI-gram : EU-US agreement on passenger data transfer annulled (7.06.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.11/pnr
Letters sent by President Borrell of the European Parliament on the
consequences of the Court case of 30 May on passenger name records (09.06.2006)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2006/jun/eu-usa-pnr-borrell-letter2.pdf