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A debate took place in the European Parliament (EP) on 7 September regarding the negotiation of a new interim agreement between EU and US on the issue of passenger name record (PNR) sharing.

The very criticized agreement adopted in 2004 on EU-US personal data sharing was annulled by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg in May 2006.

The Finnish EU Presidency and the EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini had been highly criticized by the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for having had informal meetings on the matter with US negotiators on 18 July 2006 and apparently also on 16 August 2006 without informing the EP.

Frattini pointed out that the issue of concluding an interim agreement by 1 October 2006 was of utmost importance in order to avoid legal complaints from European citizens against air carriers on the transfer of personal data to US, applied on the basis of national rules. He said it was important to "guarantee legal certainty with an agreement at European-level, to ensure a high level of security and at the same time privacy protection for our citizens".

After heated discussions during the meeting on 7 September, the MEPs decided to back the Commission in the negotiations of the interim accord that will be valid by the end of November 2007 on condition they are involved in the negotiations. The MEPs have required from US for more adequate protection and sufficient safeguards of European passenger data.

Some MEPs emphasized the necessity that the new deal should not allow full access of the US authorities to the entire passenger database coming from Europe but provide data only on a case by case basis.

During the Strasbourg meeting, Sophia in 't Veld (ALDE, NL), Parliament's rapporteur on PNR, underlined the importance of getting a unified European opinion on the matter in the light of the rumours circulating that the US might favour bilateral agreements.

Further on, the EP asked for joint decision-making rights with the Council of Ministers on the negotiations that will take place after November 2007. It also proposed a dialogue between parliamentarians from the EU, US, Canada and Australia by the end of this year in order to have a global approach on the issue of PNR and also to help in the preparation of the 2007 review of the agreement.

MEPs angry over EU-US air data snub (7.09.2006)
http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200609/9bb862fa-01fc-487b-877a-f5edd0...

Parliament of EU backs passenger data-sharing (7.09.2006)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/07/news/fly.php

EU: Balancing security and data protection for air travel (8.09.2006)
http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=217076&src=0

EU fights flight data deal with US (7.09.2006)
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14718038/

Pressure looms over controversial EU-US air data deal (8.09.2006)
http://euobserver.com/24/22368

EDRI-gram: EU-US agreement on passenger data transfer annulled (7.06.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.11/pnr