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Deutsch: Kommissarin Malmström stellt ihre Agenda vor

In a Committee meeting last week and in the Parliament's plenary session this week, Commissioner Malmström has set out her vision on various upcoming issues in her portfolio.

In the Committee, Malmström drew attention to the Communications on information sharing instruments and legislative instruments on terrorism and said that the analysis contained therein can be used for the development of future policy.

On the exchange of airline passenger name records, she said that a new Communication would be proposed in the plenary session of the Parliament.

The internal security strategy will be launched in November and will build on the Stockholm Programme. It will look at cybercrime, organised crime, terrorism etc. and specify some strategic objectives. Also, a proposal on attacks against computer systems ("Lisbonising" and updating an existing Framework Directive) will be proposed this month. Oddly enough, the Commissioner chose not to mention the problematic review of the data retention directive in her speech to the Committee.

In the Committee discussion, several insightful interventions were made by parliamentarians about web blocking, data retention and the implementation of the TFTP (SWIFT) agreement.

At the plenary session of the Parliament, the Commissioner presented her Communication on transfer of PNR data to third countries. This consists of two parts, one on the general principles that must always be followed in negotiations on this topic. The second part is on procedures in relation to the three countries that the EU already has agreements with, namely the USA, Australia and Canada. EU PNR data will be the subject of a legislative proposal, for which an impact assessment will need to be prepared.

One interesting aspect of this is that the Commission is quite clear that the data should only be used for "serious international crime" and proposes that this term should be defined. This, at least, indicates a small step forward in the coherence of the Commission's approach to such issues. The data retention Directive is also theoretically limited to "serious crime", but with no harmonised standard, with some countries having no definition at all, rendering the "limitation" entirely meaningless.

On the other hand, the headlong rush of the Commission to develop more and more ways of exporting personal data to third countries remains worrying. Commissioner Malmström's reference to the need for coherence between the "usefulness" of keeping the data and legal certainty is particularly worrying. There is vast potential for exported data to be "useful" for one reason or another. Whether it is necessary and proportionate and, therefore, legal, appears to be less of an immediate concern.

Finally, in the press conference, she was asked (see the video linked below - minute 7.00) about the Amadeus server, where the US Department of Homeland Security has (according to the FT Deutschland journalist asking the question) almost unlimited access to EU PNR data. After initially appearing to be unaware of this issue, Commissioner Malmström said that this would fall under the new agreement with the USA.

Communication on information sharing: EU information management instruments (20.07.2010)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/10/349&am...

Communication on legislative instruments on terrorism (20.07.2010)
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/malmstrom/archive/Communicati...

PNR Principles(21.09.2010)
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/malmstrom/archive/COMM_NATIVE...

Recording of Commissioner Malmström's press conference(21.09.2010)
http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/player/streaming.cfm?type=ebsvod&si...

(contrubution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)