Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-06-Speech-3-152"
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".
Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@en4
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"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@cs1
"Hr. formand! Måske skulle jeg starte med at tilslutte mig Deres velkomst til disse meget vigtige besøgende. Før jeg går videre til min forberedte tale - og jeg vil prøve at tale kortere end 10 minutter, hvilket jeg er sikker på vil glæde Dem - må jeg desværre starte med noget lidt negativt, nemlig at dette kaldes for en forhandling under ét om grænseoverskridende samarbejde, bekæmpelse af terrorisme og kriminalitet. Oppe på skærmen står der bare, at det er en forhandling om terrorisme. I sin indledning sagde hr. Altmaier, at vi skulle tale om tre grænseoverskridende politiprojekter. Det meste af det, jeg skal tale om, er indførelsen af visuminformationsystemet, som er et system til grænsekontrol. Dets primære formål er ikke bekæmpelse af terrorisme og kriminalitet. Jeg beklager, men jeg må protestere kraftigt mod titlen på denne forhandling, fordi jeg synes, at det er sjusket tænkning som dette, der giver os den idé, at vi indfører en database til grænsekontrol eller indvandringskontrol - og vi skal huske på, at 99,9 % af de besøgende i Den Europæiske Union er mennesker, der rejser lovligt, uden nogen som helst forbindelse til kriminalitet og ej heller illegale indvandrere eller indrejsende uden papirer. Det er ikke i sig selv nogen strafferetlig forseelse at opholde sig på et område uden tilladelse. Jeg beklager at måtte bruge temmelig meget tid på at slå dette fast.
Som lovgivere skal vi sikre os, at vi gør vores bedste for at maksimere fordelene og minimere risikoen ved ny teknologi. Fælles beslutningstagning betyder fælles ansvar, og en vigtig del af projektet bliver overvågning og evaluering af gennemførelsen. Parlamentet skal til enhver tid holdes underrettet om afprøvningen af systemet, og jeg håber, at det vil gå godt og give mulighed for at tage systemet i brug uden problemer. I EU-lovgivningen er vi lidt for glade for at indsætte revisionsklausuler, der aldrig anvendes i praksis. Dette må ikke ske med VIS.
Jeg vil gerne slutte med at fremhæve to andre vigtige spørgsmål. Rådet har forpligtet sig gennem to politiske erklæringer til snart at fremlægge en tilfredsstillende aftale om to vigtige stykker lovgivning. Den første er rammeafgørelsen om databeskyttelse, som vi taler meget om i aften: at indføre hensigtsmæssige regler for udveksling af sikkerhedsrelaterede oplysninger, herunder dem, som skal gælde politiets adgang til VIS. Den anden er det såkaldte "tilbagesendelsesdirektiv".
Det er unødvendigt at sige, hvorfor disse instrumenter er så vigtige for Europa og borgerne, og jeg vil blot opfordre Rådet til at holde sine politiske løfter.
Det er to et halvt år siden, at Kommissionen fremsatte sine forslag om visuminformationssystemet, og vi havde næsten halvandet år med ofte intense forhandlinger. Så jeg er virkelig tilfreds med, at vi har nået en stærk og afbalanceret aftale om disse to særdeles komplekse forslag til lovgivning, en forordning og en afgørelse.
Jeg vil gerne takke det tyske formandskab, navnlig indenrigsminister Wolfgang Schäuble, men også hr. Altmaier, for deres stærke politiske engagement i disse sager, og ligeledes de foregående formandskaber, navnlig det finske formandskab, som også arbejdede hårdt for at nå frem til en aftale. På min lange takkeliste vil jeg også gerne takke Kommissionen, navnlig næstformand Frattini, som også har deltaget meget konkret i hele processen og hjalp med til at opnå den endelige aftale. Jeg ved også, at dette resultat ikke ville have været muligt uden støtte fra skyggeordførerne - hr. Cashman, fru Klamt, fru Kaufmann og fru Ždanoka - som jeg gerne vil udtrykke min taknemmelighed over for. Endelig vil jeg gerne rette en varm tak til Parlamentets medarbejdere, som har leveret en kolossal arbejdsindsats og været uvurderlige. Min egen assistent, Alexandra, fortjener en særlig tak. Hun har bare været helt fantastisk.
Jeg vil gerne slå en vigtig institutionel ting fast. Vi har behandlet to forslag, et inden for den fælles beslutningsprocedure og et andet inden for høringsproceduren, men i virkeligheden lykkedes det at behandle dem som en pakke, så vi opnåede nærmest også fælles beslutningstagning for foranstaltningen under tredje søjle.
Aftalen viser, at Parlamentet er en stabil partner i den fælles beslutningsprocedure om yderst komplekse spørgsmål inden for retlige og indre anliggender. Det viser også, at adskillelsen mellem første og tredje søjle ganske enkelt er ineffektiv og absurd. Det kan kun øge legitimiteten af de foranstaltninger, der gennemføres på dette område, hvis Europa-Parlamentet inddrages på lige fod ved beslutninger om lovgivning inden for politisamarbejde og retligt samarbejde om strafferetlige spørgsmål. Så jeg vil gerne benytte lejligheden til at opfordre lederne, der skal mødes på topmødet den 21. juni, til at blive enige om at ophæve nationale vetoer på dette område som en hovedregel.
Nu til aftalens indhold, hvor jeg mener, at det er lykkedes at nå de mål, jeg opstillede indledningsvis: at få et system med tydelige formål, regler og ansvar, og et system, der først og fremmest udgør et betydeligt bidrag til sikre og veladministrerede grænser. Det vil også betyde en sand lettelse for lovlige rejsende, som udgør størstedelen af dem, der får Schengen-visa, samt en forbedring af den indre sikkerhed.
Parlamentet har indført langt større klarhed og konsekvens i VIS gennem en begrænsning af risikoen for misbrug eller fejl og ved at give borgerne ret til at få erstatning for fejl. Jeg har tillid til, at det system, vi har opbygget, vil skabe både den rette sikkerhed og respekt for menneskerettigheder og borgerlige frihedsrettigheder. Der er også indført mange andre forbedringer med hensyn til databeskyttelse og datasikkerhed, nødprocedurer ved brug af biometriske løsninger, styrkede regler for adgang, brug og overdragelse samt tilsynsbeføjelser for databeskyttelsesmyndighederne.
Et nyt element udgør et meget positivt resultat for Parlamentet og bør opfattes som en præcedens. Det vedrører de retshåndhævende myndigheders adgang til VIS-databasen. Efter nogle ret vanskelige forhandlinger erkendte medlemsstaterne, at VIS ikke først og fremmest er et værktøj til retshåndhævelse, og at politiet og efterretningstjenesterne derfor ikke kan få direkte adgang, men at den skal være indirekte og overvåget gennem filtrering foretaget af centrale adgangssteder. De vil kontrollere legitimiteten af alle forespørgsler, men selv om Parlamentet er lige så interesseret som medlemsstaterne i at få hensigtsmæssige værktøjer til at håndtere kriminalitet og terrorisme, har vi accepteret en nødprocedure til nødstilfælde med "forespørg først, begrund senere", som vil gælde i undtagelsestilfælde med umiddelbare trusler.
VIS bliver den største biometriske database i verden med oplysninger om omkring 20 millioner ansøgere og med til enhver tid 70 millioner sæt fingeraftryk. Biometri kan forbedre, men også invadere privatlivets fred, og den samme stringens, som er blevet anvendt på VIS, skal anvendes til at indføre sikkerhedsforanstaltninger i andre eksisterende eller kommende biometriske systemer. Dette er endnu vigtigere, når det drejer sig om den mulige fremtidige interoperabilitet eller sågar sammenkobling, som kan komme til at udgøre en alvorlig trussel mod vores privatliv, således som forskellige databeskyttelsesmyndigheder - herunder Det Forenede Kongeriges informationskommissær Richard Thomas - har sagt."@da2
"Herr Präsident! Zunächst möchte ich mich Ihrer Begrüßung dieser sehr wichtigen Besucher anschließen. Bevor ich mich meiner ausgearbeiteten Rede zuwende – und ich werde zu Ihrer großen Erleichterung versuchen, unter zehn Minuten zu bleiben –, möchte ich mit einer etwas negativen Bemerkung beginnen, nämlich, dass diese Aussprache zur grenzüberschreitenden Zusammenarbeit, Bekämpfung des Terrorismus und der grenzüberschreitenden Kriminalität geführt wird. Oben auf dem Bildschirm wird lediglich angezeigt, dass es in der Aussprache um Terrorismus geht. In seinen einleitenden Worten sagte Herr Altmaier, dass wir heute drei Dossiers in Bezug auf die grenzüberschreitende Zusammenarbeit behandeln werden. Also der Hauptteil meiner Rede wird der Verordnung zur Einrichtung des Visa-Informationssystems gewidmet sein, bei dem es sich um ein Grenzverwaltungssystem handelt. Die Bekämpfung von Terrorismus und Kriminalität ist nicht sein Hauptanliegen. Es tut mir leid, aber ich muss ernsthaft Einwände gegen die Bezeichnung dieser Aussprache erheben, da ich denke, dass durch schlampiges Denken wie das hier die Vorstellung aufkommen könnte, dass die Einrichtung einer Grenzkontroll- oder Einwanderungskontrolldatenbank beabsichtigt ist – und denken Sie bitte daran, dass es sich bei 99,9 % der Besucher der Europäischen Union um legitime Reisende handelt, die übrigens genau so wenig wie illegale Einwanderer oder Migranten keinerlei Verbindungen zur Kriminalität haben. Sich unbefugt auf einem fremden Territorium aufzuhalten stellt an sich keine Straftat dar. Es tut mir leid, dass es doch etwas Zeit gekostet hat, um darauf aufmerksam zu machen.
Wir müssen sicherstellen, dass wir als Gesetzgeber unser Bestes dafür tun, den Nutzen zu maximieren und die Risiken der neuen Technologien zu minimieren. Mitentscheidung heißt gemeinsame Verantwortung, weshalb die Überwachung der Umsetzung und deren Bewertung ein wichtiger Bestandteil des Projekts sein wird. Das Parlament muss in Bezug auf den Test des Systems vollständig informiert bleiben, der hoffentlich positiv ausfallen wird und einen reibungslosen Übergang zur Inbetriebnahme des Systems ermöglichen wird. In der EU-Gesetzgebung nehmen wir nur allzu gern Überprüfungs-Klauseln auf, die dann nicht umgesetzt werden. Das darf mit dem VIS nicht passieren.
Ich möchte mit dem Verweis auf zwei weitere wichtige Fragen schließen. Der Rat hat sich in zwei politischen Erklärungen dazu verpflichtet, schon bald ein zufrieden stellendes Übereinkommen zu zwei entscheidenden Gesetzesentwürfen vorzulegen. Zum einen handelt es sich um den Rahmenbeschluss zum Datenschutz, von dem heute Abend so oft die Rede ist: Einführung von angemessenen Vorschriften für den Austausch von sicherheitsrelevanten Daten, einschließlich jener, die die Polizei für den Zugriff auf das VIS erhält. Zum anderen geht es um die so genannte Rückführungsrichtlinie.
Es versteht sich von selbst, warum diese Instrumente so wichtig für Europa und seine Bürger sind und ich möchte den Rat lediglich dazu auffordern, sich an seine politischen Verpflichtungen zu halten.
Vor zweieinhalb Jahren hat die Kommission ihre Vorschläge zum Visa-Informationssystem vorgelegt, und es liegen nun fast anderthalb Jahre mit oftmals intensiven Verhandlungen hinter uns. Daher freut es mich außerordentlich, dass wir eine bedeutsame und ausgewogene Einigung zu diesen beiden äußerst komplizierten Legislativvorschlägen, einer Verordnung und einer Entscheidung, erzielt haben.
Ich möchte dem deutschen Ratsvorsitz, insbesondere Innenminister Wolfgang Schäuble, aber auch Herrn Altmaier für ihr großes politisches Engagement für diese Dossiers danken, desgleichen den früheren Ratsvorsitzen, insbesondere dem finnischen Ratsvorsitz, der sich ebenfalls für einen Vertrag stark gemacht hat. Auf meiner langen Dankesliste steht auch die Kommission, insbesondere Vizepräsident Frattini, der uns während des gesamten Prozesses sehr bereitwillig unterstützt und das endgültige Übereinkommen ermöglicht hat. Außerdem weiß ich, dass dieses Ergebnis ohne die Unterstützung aller Schattenberichterstatter – Herrn Cashman, Frau Klamt, Frau Kaufmann und Frau Zdanoka – nicht möglich gewesen wäre. Auch ihnen möchte ich meinen Dank aussprechen. Abschließend möchte ich den Mitarbeitern des Parlaments meinen herzlichen Dank aussprechen, die eine beträchtliche Arbeit geleistet haben und unverzichtbar waren. Meine Assistentin Alexandra verdient einen besonderen Dank, sie war absolut super.
Ich möchte noch etwas Wichtiges zu den Institutionen sagen. Wir haben hier zwei Vorschläge bearbeitet, einen im Mitentscheidungsverfahren und den anderen per Konsultation, doch in Wirklichkeit haben wir es geschafft, sie als Paket zu behandeln, so dass wir im Grunde auch eine Mitentscheidung zur Maßnahme der dritten Säule erzielt haben.
Der Vertrag lässt erkennen, dass das Parlament ein ernstzunehmender Partner im Mitentscheidungsverfahren zu äußerst komplizierten Angelegenheiten in Bezug auf Recht und Inneres ist. Er zeigt ferner, dass die Trennung zwischen der ersten und dritten Säule schlichtweg ineffizient und absurd ist. Die Einbeziehung des Europäischen Parlaments auf Augenhöhe in Entscheidungen über Gesetzesvorlagen zu polizeilicher und justizieller Zusammenarbeit bei der Verbrechensbekämpfung kann die Legitimität der in diesem Bereich verabschiedeten Maßnahmen letztlich nur erhöhen. Daher möchte ich diese Gelegenheit nutzen und die am Gipfel am 21. Juni teilnehmenden Regierungschefs dringend ersuchen, die nationalen Vetos in diesem Bereich generell abzuschaffen.
Um auf den Inhalt unseres Übereinkommens zurückzukommen, denke ich, dass wir das geschafft haben, was ich von Anfang an angestrebt hatte: ein System mit klaren Zielen, Regeln und Zuständigkeiten, das zunächst einmal einen herausragenden Beitrag zu sicheren und gut verwalteten Grenzen leistet. Er wird rechtschaffenen Reisenden echte Erleichterungen bringen, die die Mehrheit der mit Schengen-Visa reisenden Menschen ausmachen, aber auch die innere Sicherheit verbessern.
Das Parlament hat durch die Begrenzung von Missbrauchs- oder Fehlerrisiken mehr Klarheit und Genauigkeit in das VIS gebracht und den Bürgern die Möglichkeit verschafft, für Fehler entschädigt zu werden. Ich bin mir sicher, dass unser System sowohl für angemessene Sicherheit als auch die Achtung der Menschenrechte und Grundfreiheiten sorgen wird. Viele weitere Verbesserungen wurden in Sachen Datenschutz und Datensicherheit eingeführt, nämlich Rückzugstrategien für den Einsatz biometrischer Daten, verschärfte Vorschriften in Bezug auf Zugang, Verwendung und Übertragung sowie Überwachungsbefugnisse für die Datenschutzbehörden.
Ein neues Element steht für eine sehr positive Errungenschaft des Parlaments und sollte als Präzedenzfall gelten. Es geht um den Zugriff von Strafverfolgungsbehörden auf die VIS-Datenbank. Nach äußerst schwierigen Verhandlungen erkannten die Mitgliedstaaten wirklich an, dass das VIS nicht vorrangig ein Werkzeug zur Strafverfolgung ist und dass daher jeglicher Direktzugriff durch die Polizei oder Geheimdienste nicht möglich sei, sondern vielmehr indirekt erfolgen und über zentrale Anlaufstellen gefiltert werden muss. Diese werden die Legitimität jeder Anfrage überprüfen, da das Parlament genau wie die Mitgliedstaaten daran interessiert ist, über angemessene Werkzeuge zur Bekämpfung von Verbrechen und Terror zu verfügen, und wir haben uns auf ein Dringlichkeitsverfahren für Notfälle („erst die Anfrage, dann die Begründung“) geeinigt, wenn es um Ausnahmefälle bei Gefahr im Verzug geht.
Mit den Daten von etwa 20 Millionen Antragstellern wird das VIS die größte biometrische Datenbank der Welt werden, die 70 Millionen Sätze von Fingerabdrücken ständig bereithält. Die Biometrie kann die Privatsphäre zwar verbessern, aber auch verletzen, und die Genauigkeit, die für das VIS gilt, muss auch für Sicherheitsmechanismen für andere vorhandene oder künftige biometrische Systeme gelten. Das bekommt noch mehr Gewicht, wenn es um mögliche künftige Interoperabilität oder sogar Vernetzung geht, die einen schweren Angriff auf die Privatsphäre darstellen, wie die Datenschutzbehörden – einschließlich das britische Kommissionsmitglied für Information, Richard Thomas – bemerkt haben."@de9
"Κύριε Πρόεδρε, ίσως θα μπορούσα να ξεκινήσω επαναλαμβάνοντας το καλωσόρισμά σας προς αυτούς τους πολύ σημαντικούς επισκέπτες. Πριν περάσω στις παρατηρήσεις μου –και θα προσπαθήσω να μην εξαντλήσω τα δέκα λεπτά, προς μεγάλη ανακούφισή σας, είμαι βέβαιη– φοβάμαι ότι θα ξεκινήσω με μια ελαφρώς αρνητική παρατήρηση λέγοντας ότι αυτή η συζήτηση καταγράφεται ως κοινή συζήτηση για τη διασυνοριακή συνεργασία, την καταπολέμηση της τρομοκρατίας και της εγκληματικότητας. Στην οθόνη γράφει απλώς ότι είναι μια συζήτηση για την τρομοκρατία. Στην εισαγωγή του, ο κ. Altmaier είπε ότι θα μιλήσουμε για τρία διασυνοριακά έργα αστυνόμευσης. Λοιπόν, το μεγαλύτερο μέρος των σχολίων που θέλω να κάνω αφορούν τον κανονισμό που θεσπίζει το Σύστημα Πληροφοριών για τις Θεωρήσεις (VIS), το οποίο είναι ένα σύστημα διαχείρισης συνόρων. Ο βασικός σκοπός του δεν είναι η καταπολέμηση της τρομοκρατίας και του εγκλήματος. Λυπάμαι, αλλά ενίσταμαι σοβαρά στον τίτλο αυτής της συζήτησης, διότι πιστεύω ότι αυτό το επιπόλαιο σκεπτικό είναι εκείνο που μας οδηγεί στην ιδέα να δημιουργηθεί μια βάση δεδομένων συνοριακού ελέγχου ή ελέγχου της μετανάστευσης – και ας μην ξεχνάμε ότι το 99,9% των επισκεπτών στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση είναι νόμιμοι ταξιδιώτες που δεν έχουν καμία απολύτως σχέση με την εγκληματικότητα, ούτε με τους λαθρομετανάστες ή τους παράνομους εισερχόμενους. Δεν συνιστά εγκληματική αξιόποινη πράξη καθεαυτή το να είναι κανείς παράνομος σε μια περιοχή. Λυπάμαι που μου πήρε τόσο πολύ χρόνο για να το επισημάνω αυτό.
Πρέπει να βεβαιωθούμε ως νομοθέτες ότι θα κάνουμε ό,τι μπορούμε για να μεγιστοποιήσουμε τα οφέλη και να ελαχιστοποιήσουμε τους κινδύνους των νέων τεχνολογιών. Συναπόφαση σημαίνει συνευθύνη και, ως εκ τούτου, ένα σημαντικό μέρος του σχεδίου θα είναι η εφαρμογή-εποπτεία και αξιολόγηση. Το Κοινοβούλιο πρέπει να τηρείται πλήρως ενημερωμένο για τη δοκιμή του συστήματος, η οποία ελπίζω ότι θα είναι θετική και θα επιτρέψει την ομαλή εφαρμογή του συστήματος. Στην κοινοτική νομοθεσία, μας αρέσει υπερβολικά να αναθεωρούμε ρήτρες που παραμένουν κενό γράμμα. Αυτό δεν πρέπει να συμβεί με το VIS.
Θέλω να ολοκληρώσω επισημαίνοντας δύο άλλα σημαντικά θέματα. Το Συμβούλιο δεσμεύτηκε μέσω δύο πολιτικών δηλώσεων να επιτύχει σύντομα μια ικανοποιητική συμφωνία για δύο σημαντικά νομοθετήματα. Το πρώτο από αυτά είναι η απόφαση πλαίσιο για την προστασία των δεδομένων για την οποία μιλάμε πολύ σήμερα το απόγευμα: η εισαγωγή κατάλληλων κανόνων για την ανταλλαγή των δεδομένων που σχετίζονται με την ασφάλεια, συμπεριλαμβανομένων και αυτών που θα λαμβάνει η αστυνομία για πρόσβαση στο VIS. Το δεύτερο είναι η αποκαλούμενη «οδηγία επιστροφής».
Είναι περιττό να πούμε γιατί αυτά τα μέσα είναι τόσο σημαντικά για την Ευρώπη και τους πολίτες της και θέλω απλώς να ζητήσω από το Συμβούλιο να τηρήσει τις πολιτικές δεσμεύσεις του.
Έχουν περάσει δυόμισι χρόνια από τότε που Επιτροπή υπέβαλε τις προτάσεις της για το Σύστημα Πληροφοριών για τις Θεωρήσεις και διανύσαμε σχεδόν ενάμισι χρόνο συχνά εντατικών διαπραγματεύσεων. Γι’ αυτό χαίρομαι ιδιαίτερα που πετύχαμε μια ισχυρή και ισορροπημένη συμφωνία σχετικά με αυτές τις δύο εξαιρετικά πολύπλοκες νομοθετικές προτάσεις, έναν κανονισμό και μια απόφαση.
Θέλω να ευχαριστήσω τη γερμανική Προεδρία, ειδικά τον Υπουργό Εσωτερικών Wolfgang Schäuble, αλλά και τον κ. Altmaier, για την ισχυρή πολιτική τους αφοσίωση σε αυτούς τους φακέλους, καθώς και τις προηγούμενες Προεδρίες, ειδικά τη φινλανδική Προεδρία, που επίσης εργάστηκε σκληρά για την επίτευξη μιας συμφωνίας. Στον μακρύ ευχαριστήριο κατάλογό μου, θέλω επίσης να ευχαριστήσω την Επιτροπή, ιδιαίτερα τον Αντιπρόεδρο Frattini, ο οποίος συμμετείχε ενεργά συνοδεύοντάς μας σε όλη τη διαδικασία και διευκολύνοντας την τελική συμφωνία. Ξέρω επίσης ότι αυτό το αποτέλεσμα δεν θα ήταν δυνατό χωρίς την υποστήριξη όλων των σκιωδών εισηγητών –του κ. Cashman, της κ. Klamt, της κ. Kaufmann και της κ. Ždanoka– στους οποίους θέλω να εκφράσω την ευγνωμοσύνη μου. Τέλος, θέλω να εκφράσω τις θερμές μου ευχαριστίες στο προσωπικό του Κοινοβουλίου για το τεράστιο έργο του που ήταν ανεκτίμητο. Η βοηθός μου, Alexandra, αξίζει ειδικές ευχαριστίες. Ήταν θαυμάσια.
Θέλω να κάνω μια σημαντική θεσμική παρατήρηση. Εξετάσαμε εδώ δύο προτάσεις, μία με συναπόφαση και μία με διαβούλευση, αλλά στην πραγματικότητα καταφέραμε να τις αντιμετωπίσουμε ως πακέτο, συνεπώς επιτύχαμε σχεδόν-συναπόφαση και σε ένα μέτρο του τρίτου πυλώνα.
Η συμφωνία δείχνει ότι το Κοινοβούλιο είναι ζωτικός εταίρος στη συναπόφαση για ιδιαιτέρως σύνθετα θέματα δικαιοσύνης και εσωτερικών υποθέσεων. Δείχνει επίσης ότι ο διαχωρισμός μεταξύ του πρώτου και του τρίτου πυλώνα είναι απλά ανεπαρκής και παράλογη. Η ισότιμη συμμετοχή του Ευρωπαϊκού Κοινοβουλίου στην έγκριση νομοθεσίας σχετικά με την αστυνομική και δικαστική συνεργασία σε ποινικές υποθέσεις δεν μπορεί παρά να αυξήσει τη νομιμότητα των μέτρων που αποφασίζονται σε αυτόν τον τομέα. Δράττομαι λοιπόν αυτής της ευκαιρίας για να ζητήσω από τους ηγέτες που θα συγκεντρωθούν στη σύνοδο κορυφής της 21ης Ιουνίου να συμφωνήσουν για την άρση των εθνικών βέτο σε αυτόν τον τομέα κατά γενικό κανόνα.
Ως προς το περιεχόμενο της συμφωνίας μας, πιστεύω ότι καταφέραμε να επιτύχουμε αυτά που είχα ως στόχους από την αρχή: να έχουμε ένα σύστημα με σαφείς σκοπούς, κανόνες και ευθύνες, το οποίο θα συνιστά καταρχάς μια σημαντική συνδρομή στην ασφάλεια και στην καλή διαχείριση των συνόρων. Θα παράσχει επίσης πραγματική διευκόλυνση στους νόμιμους ταξιδιώτες, που συνιστούν την πλειοψηφία εκείνων που έχουν θεωρήσεις Σένγκεν, και θα βελτιώσει την εσωτερική ασφάλεια.
Το Κοινοβούλιο εισήγαγε πολύ περισσότερη σαφήνεια και ακρίβεια στο σύστημα VIS, περιορίζοντας τον κίνδυνο κατάχρησης ή δυσλειτουργίας και δίνοντας στους πολίτες το δικαίωμα να λαμβάνουν αποζημίωση για λάθη. Είμαι βέβαιη ότι το σύστημα που αναπτύξαμε θα παράσχει τόσο ασφάλεια όσο και σεβασμό για τα δικαιώματα και τις πολιτικές ελευθερίες των πολιτών. Εισήχθησαν πολλές άλλες βελτιώσεις όσον αφορά την προστασία και την ασφάλεια των δεδομένων, τις εφεδρικές διαδικασίες για τη χρήση βιομετρικών στοιχείων, τους ενισχυμένους κανόνες για την πρόσβαση, τη χρήση και τη μεταφορά, καθώς και τις εξουσίες εποπτείας για τις αρχές προστασίας δεδομένων.
Ένα νέο στοιχείο συνιστά ένα πολύ θετικό επίτευγμα του Κοινοβουλίου και πρέπει να αντιμετωπιστεί ως προηγούμενο. Αφορά την πρόσβαση από τις αρχές επιβολής του νόμου στη βάση δεδομένων VIS. Μετά από αρκετά δύσκολες διαπραγματεύσεις, τα κράτη μέλη αναγνώρισαν ότι το VIS δεν αποτελεί πρωτίστως μέσο επιβολής του νόμου και ότι συνεπώς κάθε πρόσβαση από την αστυνομία ή τις μυστικές υπηρεσίες δεν μπορεί να είναι άμεσα διαθέσιμη, αλλά πρέπει να είναι έμμεση και να εποπτεύεται μέσω φιλτραρίσματος από κεντρικά σημεία πρόσβασης. Αυτά θα ελέγχουν τη νομιμότητα κάθε αιτήματος, αν και επειδή το Κοινοβούλιο ανησυχεί όσο και τα κράτη μέλη για την ύπαρξη επαρκών μέσων για την αντιμετώπιση της εγκληματικότητας και της τρομοκρατίας, συμφωνήσαμε για μια επείγουσα διαδικασία για καταστάσεις έκτακτης ανάγκης που ανήκουν στην περίπτωση «πρώτα αίτημα, μετά αιτιολόγηση», η οποία θα καλύπτει εξαιρετικές περιπτώσεις άμεσων απειλών.
Το VIS θα γίνει η μεγαλύτερη βάση βιομετρικών δεδομένων στον κόσμο, με τα στοιχεία περίπου 20 εκατομμυρίων αιτούντων και με 70 εκατομμύρια δακτυλικά αποτυπώματα. Τα βιομετρικά στοιχεία μπορούν να ενισχύσουν αλλά και να πλήξουν το προσωπικό απόρρητο και η ίδια πειθαρχία που εφαρμόστηκε στο VIS πρέπει να εφαρμοστεί στην ανάπτυξη διασφαλίσεων για άλλα υπάρχοντα ή μελλοντικά βιομετρικά συστήματα. Αυτό είναι ακόμα πιο σημαντικό όσον αφορά την πιθανή μελλοντική διαλειτουργικότητα ή ακόμα και διασύνδεση, η οποία θα μπορούσε να θέσει σε σοβαρό κίνδυνο το προσωπικό απόρρητο, όπως είπαν οι αρχές προστασίας προσωπικών δεδομένων, καθώς και ο βρετανός Επίτροπος Πληροφοριών Richard Thomas."@el10
".
Señor Presidente, permítame empezar sumándome a la bienvenida que ha dado a estos ilustres visitantes. Antes de pasar a los comentarios que he preparado –e intentaré no utilizar los diez minutos que tengo, sin duda para gran alivio de todos–, me temo que debo empezar con una nota negativa, que es que éste se considera un debate conjunto sobre la cooperación fronteriza en la lucha contra el terrorismo y el crimen. En la pantalla de arriba dice tan solo que se trata de un debate sobre el terrorismo. En su introducción, el señor Altmaier ha dicho que íbamos a hablar de tres proyectos de control policial transfronterizo. Pues bien, la mayor parte de lo que quiero tratar versa sobre el reglamento que establece el Sistema de Información de Visados, que es un sistema de gestión de fronteras. Su objetivo principal no es combatir el terrorismo y el crimen. Lo siento, pero estoy muy en desacuerdo con el título de este debate, porque creo que una idea chapucera como esta es lo que nos hace pensar que se establece un control fronterizo o una base de datos para controlar la inmigración, y hemos de recordar que el 99,9 % de los visitantes que llegan a la Unión Europea son viajeros legítimos que no tienen relación alguna con el crimen, como tampoco la tienen los inmigrantes ilegales o las personas que entran sin autorización. Estar en un territorio sin autorización no es en sí mismo un delito penal. Siento tener que emplear tanto tiempo en realizar esa observación.
Como legisladores debemos asegurarnos de que hacemos todo lo posible por maximizar los beneficios y minimizar los riesgos de las nuevas tecnologías. Codecisión significa corresponsabilidad, y por ello una parte importante del proyecto será el proceso de aplicación, supervisión y evaluación. El Parlamento debe estar plenamente informado sobre las pruebas del sistema, que espero que sean positivas y que permitan la puesta en marcha del sistema sin problemas. En la legislación de la Unión Europea nos gusta demasiado someter a revisión cláusulas que no dejan de ser letra muerta. Esto no debe ocurrir con el VIS.
Quiero terminar subrayando otras dos cuestiones importantes. El Consejo se ha comprometido en dos declaraciones políticas a presentar en breve un acuerdo satisfactorio sobre dos instrumentos legislativos esenciales. El primero de ellos es la decisión marco sobre la protección de datos, de la que hablamos mucho esta tarde: la introducción de normas adecuadas para el intercambio de datos de seguridad, incluida la que recibirá la policía por tener acceso al VIS. La segunda es la llamada «directiva de regreso».
No es necesario decir por qué estos instrumentos son tan importantes para Europa y sus ciudadanos, y simplemente instaría al Consejo a respetar sus compromisos políticos.
Hace dos años y medio que la Comisión presentó sus propuestas sobre el Sistema de Información de Visados, y ya hemos negociado intensamente durante casi un año y medio. Por ello me complace enormemente que hayamos logrado un acuerdo sólido y equilibrado sobre estas dos propuestas legislativas tan complicadas, un reglamento y una decisión.
Quisiera agradecer a la Presidencia, especialmente al Ministro del Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, y también al señor Altmaier, su firme voluntad política de sacar adelante estos expedientes, al igual que a otras Presidencias anteriores, especialmente la Presidencia finlandesa, que también se esforzó mucho por llegar a un acuerdo. En mi larga lista de agradecimientos, también quiero dar las gracias a la Comisión, especialmente al Vicepresidente Frattini, que nos ha acompañado durante todo el proceso con su apoyo activo y ha facilitado el acuerdo final. Asimismo me consta que este resultado no habría sido posible sin el apoyo de todos los ponentes alternativos –el señor Cashman, la señora Klamt, la señora Kaufmann y la señora Ždanoka–, a quienes quiero expresar mi gratitud. Por último, quisiera expresar mi sincero agradecimiento al personal del Parlamento, que ha llevado a cabo un enorme volumen de trabajo y cuya ayuda ha sido inestimable. Mi propia ayudante, Alexandra, merece un agradecimiento especial. Ha estado absolutamente magnífica.
Quiero hacer hincapié en una cuestión institucional. Hemos tratado dos propuestas, una en régimen de codecisión y la otra en régimen de consulta, pero en realidad hemos conseguido gestionarlas como un paquete, por lo que también hemos logrado casi aplicar la codecisión a la medida del tercer pilar.
El acuerdo demuestra que el Parlamento es un interlocutor válido en el procedimiento de codecisión sobre cuestiones de gran complejidad en materia de justicia y asuntos de interior. También demuestra que la separación entre el primer y el tercer pilar es, sencillamente, ineficaz y absurda. La participación del Parlamento Europeo en pie de igualdad a la hora de decidir sobre la legislación en materia de cooperación judicial y policial en asuntos criminales no puede sino incrementar la legitimidad de las medidas decididas en este terreno. Por ello, quiero aprovechar esta oportunidad para instar a los líderes reunidos para la cumbre del 21 de junio a que acuerden levantar los vetos nacionales en este ámbito como norma general.
Volviendo al contenido de nuestro acuerdo, creo que hemos logrado lo que eran mis objetivos desde el principio: contar con un sistema de responsabilidades, normas y propósitos claros que represente sobre todo una contribución significativa al logro de unas fronteras seguras y bien gestionadas. También facilitará realmente las cosas a los viajeros legales, que son la mayoría de quienes reciben un visado Schengen, y ayudará a reforzar la seguridad interior.
El Parlamento ha aportado mucha más claridad y rigor al VIS, limitando el riesgo de abusos o fallos y concediendo a los ciudadanos el derecho a recibir compensaciones por los errores. Estoy segura de que el sistema que hemos creado comportará tanto las debidas garantías de seguridad como el respeto de los derechos y las libertades civiles de los ciudadanos. Se han introducido muchas otras mejoras desde el punto de vista de la protección y la seguridad de los datos, procedimientos de emergencia para el uso de datos biométricos, normas reforzadas de acceso, uso y transferencia y facultades de control para las autoridades responsables de la protección de datos.
Un nuevo elemento representa un logro muy positivo por parte del Parlamento y debería considerarse un precedente. Tiene que ver con el acceso por parte de las autoridades policiales a la base de datos del VIS. Tras arduas negociaciones, los Estados miembros reconocieron que el VIS no es principalmente un instrumento para hacer cumplir la ley y que por tanto cualquier acceso por parte de la policía o de los servicios de inteligencia no puede ser un acceso directo, sino que debe ser indirecto y debe estar supervisado mediante el filtrado por los puntos de acceso centrales. Estos últimos comprobarán la legitimidad de cada solicitud, aunque dado que el Parlamento está igual de preocupado que los Estados miembros por disponer de instrumentos suficientes para atajar el crimen y el terrorismo, hemos acordado un procedimiento de urgencia para emergencias de «solicita primero y justifica después», que abarcará casos excepcionales de amenazas inminentes.
El VIS se convertirá en la mayor base de datos biométricos del mundo, con datos de alrededor de 20 millones de solicitantes, que en un momento dado albergará 70 millones de juegos de huellas dactilares. Los datos biométricos pueden reforzar la intimidad, pero también invadirla, por lo que el mismo rigor que se ha aplicado al VIS ha de aplicarse a la creación de garantías para otros sistemas biométricos existentes o futuros. Esto adquiere mayor importancia cuando se trata de una futura interoperabilidad o incluso interconexión, que podría poner en peligro gravemente la intimidad, como han afirmado autoridades responsables de la protección de datos, entre otros el Comisario de Información del Reino Unido, Richard Thomas."@es21
"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@et5
".
Arvoisa puhemies, voinen aloittaa yhtymällä tervetulotoivotuksiinne näille erittäin tärkeille vieraille. Ennen kuin siirryn valmistelemaani puheenvuoroon – ja yritän selviytyä siitä alle kymmenessä minuutissa, mikä on teille varmasti suuri helpotus – minun on valitettavasti esitettävä hieman kritiikkiä, nimittäin siitä, että tätä on mainostettu yhteiskeskusteluna rajatylittävästä yhteistyöstä sekä terrorismin ja rikollisuuden torjunnasta. Näyttötaululla todetaan pelkästään, että kyseessä on keskustelu terrorismista. Neuvoston puheenjohtaja Altmaier totesi puheenvuorossaan, että keskustelemme kolmesta rajatylittävää yhteistyötä koskevasta hankkeesta. Minä haluan kuitenkin puhua lähinnä asetuksesta, jolla perustetaan viisumitietojärjestelmä, joka on ulkorajojen valvontajärjestelmä. Sen päätarkoitus ei ole torjua terrorismia ja rikollisuutta. Olen pahoillani, mutta vastustan jyrkästi tämän keskustelun leimaamista, koska tällainen leväperäinen ajattelu synnyttää mielestäni sellaisen käsityksen, että ollaan perustamassa rajavalvontaa tai maahanmuuton valvontaa koskevaa tietokantaa. Muistakaamme, että 99,9 prosenttia Euroopan unionissa vierailevista on laillisia matkustajia, joilla ei ole mitään yhteyttä minkäänlaiseen rikollisuuteen, kuten ei myöskään laittomilla maahanmuuttajilla tai EU:n alueelle luvattomasti tulevilla henkilöillä. Ei ole rikos sinänsä oleskella luvattomasti alueella. Pahoittelen, että jouduin käyttämään melko paljon aikaa tämän seikan esille tuomiseen.
Meidän on lainsäätäjinä varmistettava, että teemme parhaamme maksimoidaksemme uusien teknologioiden hyödyt ja minimoidaksemme niiden riskit. Yhteispäätösoikeus tarkoittaa yhteisvastuuta, ja siten tärkeä osa hanketta on täytäntöönpanon valvonta ja arviointi. Parlamentille on tiedotettava täysimääräisesti järjestelmän testaamisesta, jonka toivon osoittautuvan myönteiseksi ja mahdollistavan joustavan siirtymisen järjestelmän toimintavaiheeseen. Sisällytämme EU:n lainsäädäntöön hieman liiankin mielellämme tarkistuslausekkeita, jotka jäävät kuolleiksi kirjaimiksi. Näin ei saa tapahtua VIS:n kohdalla.
Haluan lopuksi korostaa kahta muuta tärkeää seikkaa. Neuvosto on sitoutunut kahdessa poliittisessa julkilausumassa pääsemään pian tyydyttävään sopimukseen kahdesta ratkaisevasta säädöksestä. Ensimmäinen näistä on puitepäätös tietosuojasta, josta puhumme paljon tänä iltana: asianmukaisten sääntöjen käyttöönotosta turvallisuuteen liittyvien tietojen vaihdolle, mikä käsittää myös tiedot, joita poliisiviranomaiset saavat tehdessään hakuja VIS:stä. Toinen on niin sanottu palauttamisdirektiivi.
On tarpeetonta sanoa, miksi nämä välineet ovat niin tärkeitä EU:lle ja sen kansalaisille, ja kehotankin vain neuvostoa noudattamaan poliittisia sitoumuksiaan.
Siitä on kaksi ja puoli vuotta, kun komissio esitti ehdotuksensa viisumitietojärjestelmästä, ja olemme käyneet lähes puolentoista vuoden ajan intensiivisiä neuvotteluja. Olenkin hyvin tyytyväinen, että olemme saaneet aikaan vankan ja tasapainoisen sopimuksen näistä kahdesta erittäin monimutkaisesta lainsäädäntöehdotuksesta, asetuksesta ja päätöksestä.
Haluan kiittää puheenjohtajavaltio Saksaa ja erityisesti sisäasiainministeri Wolfgang Schäublea, mutta myös valtiosihteeri Altmaieria, voimakkaasta poliittisesta sitoutumisesta näihin asiakirjoihin, samoin kuin edellisiä puheenjohtajavaltioita, erityisesti Suomea, joka myös teki lujasti töitä sopimuksen aikaansaamiseksi. Pitkässä kiitettävien listassani haluan seuraavaksi kiittää komissiota ja erityisesti varapuheenjohtaja Frattinia, joka osallistui prosessiin hyvin tiiviisti kaikissa sen vaiheissa ja auttoi lopullisen sopimuksen aikaansaamisessa. Tiedän myös, ettei tämä tulos olisi ollut mahdollinen ilman kaikkien varjoesittelijöiden – jäsenten Cashman, Klamt, Kaufmann ja Ždanoka – tukea, ja haluankin ilmaista heille kiitollisuuteni. Lopuksi haluan kiittää lämpimästi parlamentin henkilöstöä, jonka työpanos oli valtava ja korvaamaton. Avustajani Alexandra ansaitsee erityiskiitokset. Hän on ollut aivan suurenmoinen.
Haluan tuoda esille tärkeän toimielimiin liittyvän asian. Olemme käsitelleet tältä osin kahta ehdotusta, toista yhteispäätösmenettelyssä ja toista kuulemismenettelyssä, mutta todellisuudessa onnistuimme käsittelemään niitä yhtenä pakettina, joten myös kolmanteen pilariin kuuluvaa toimea käsiteltiin puolittaisessa yhteispäätösmenettelyssä.
Sopimus on osoitus siitä, että parlamentti on pätevä kumppani käsiteltäessä yhteispäätösmenettelyssä erittäin monitahoisia oikeus- ja sisäasioita koskevia kysymyksiä. Se on osoitus myös siitä, ettei jako ensimmäiseen ja kolmanteen pilariin yksinkertaisesti toimi eikä ole järkevä. Euroopan parlamentin ottaminen tasavertaisena kumppanina mukaan päätöksentekoon, joka koskee lainsäädäntöä poliisiyhteistyöstä ja oikeudellisesta yhteistyöstä rikosasioissa, voi pelkästään lisätä tällä alalla päätettyjen toimien laillisuutta. Käytänkin tätä tilaisuutta kehottaakseni johtajia, jotka kokoontuvat 21. kesäkuuta pidettävää huippukokousta varten, sopimaan kansallisten veto-oikeuksien poistamisesta tällä alalla yleissääntönä.
Tarkastelen seuraavaksi sopimuksemme sisältöä. Olemme mielestäni onnistuneet saavuttamaan ne asiat, jotka olivat tavoitteitani alusta pitäen: järjestelmän, jossa on selkeät päämäärät, säännöt ja velvoitteet ja jolla edistetään ennen muuta merkittävästi ulkorajojen turvallisuutta ja tehokasta valvontaa. Se myös tuo todellista helpotusta laillisille matkustajille, jotka ovat enemmistönä Schengen-viisumin saaneiden joukossa, samoin kuin lisää sisäistä turvallisuutta.
Parlamentti on tuonut paljon lisää selkeyttä ja tiukkuutta viisumitietojärjestelmään rajoittaen väärinkäytösten tai toimintahäiriöiden riskiä ja antaen kansalaisille oikeuden saada korvausta virheistä. Olen varma, että rakentamallamme järjestelmällä taataan sekä asianmukainen turvallisuus että kansalaisoikeuksien- ja vapauksien kunnioittaminen. On tehty monia muitakin parannuksia, jotka koskevat tietosuojaa ja -turvaa, biometristen tietojen käyttöön liittyviä varmistusmenettelyjä, viisumitietojärjestelmän tietoihin pääsyä sekä niiden käyttöä ja edelleen välittämistä koskevia tiukennettuja sääntöjä sekä tietosuojaviranomaisten valvontavaltuuksia.
Yksi uusi osatekijä on parlamentin erittäin myönteinen aikaansaannos, ja sitä olisi pidettävä ennakkotapauksena. Se koskee lainvalvontaviranomaisten pääsyä VIS-tietokantaan. Melkoisen vaikeiden neuvottelujen jälkeen jäsenvaltiot
ettei VIS ole etupäässä lainvalvonnan väline ja ettei poliisilla tai tiedustelupalveluilla voi siten olla suoraa pääsyä siihen, vaan välillinen pääsy, jota valvotaan suodattamisen avulla keskusyhteyspisteissä. Nämä tarkistavat kunkin pyynnön laillisuuden, sillä vaikka parlamentti on aivan yhtä huolissaan kuin jäsenvaltiot riittävistä välineistä rikollisuuden ja terrorismin torjumiseksi, olemme sopineet kiireellisestä "pyydä ensin, perustele myöhemmin" -menettelystä hätätapauksia varten. Näihin kuuluvat poikkeustapaukset, joissa uhka on välitön.
VIS:stä tulee maailman suurin biometrinen tietokanta noin 20:tä miljoonaa hakijaa koskevine yksityiskohtaisine tietoineen, ja se käsittää 70 miljoonaa sormenjälkeä. Biometriset tiedot voivat lisätä mutta myös loukata yksityisyyttä, ja samaa tinkimättömyyttä, jota on sovellettu VIS:iin, on sovellettava takeiden luomiseen muita olemassa olevia tai tulevia biometrisiä järjestelmiä varten. Tämä on vieläkin tärkeämpää, kun on kyse mahdollisesta tulevasta yhteentoimivuudesta tai jopa yhteenkytkeytymisestä, mikä saattaisi vaarantaa vakavasti yksityisyyden, kuten tietosuojaviranomaiset – myös Yhdistyneen kuningaskunnan Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – ovat todenneet."@fi7
".
Monsieur le Président, permettez-moi de commencer en me joignant à vous pour souhaiter la bienvenue à ces visiteurs très importants. Avant de passer aux remarques que j'ai préparées - et j'essaierai de ne pas prendre dix minutes, à votre plus grand soulagement, j'en suis sûre - je crains de devoir commencer par une note légèrement négative, à savoir qu'il est question de discussion commune sur la coopération transfrontière, la lutte contre le terrorisme et la criminalité. À l'écran, il est inscrit qu'il s'agit d'un débat sur le terrorisme. M. Altmaier a déclaré dans ses remarques liminaires que nous allions parler de trois projets de police transfrontière. Et bien, ce dont je veux parler traite en majeure partie du règlement établissant le système d'information sur les visas, qui est un système de gestion des frontières. Son principal objectif n'est pas de lutter contre le terrorisme et la criminalité. Je suis désolée, mais j'ai une importante objection à émettre concernant le libellé de ce débat, car je pense que c'est ce type de manque de rigueur qui nous conduit à penser que vous créez une base de données de contrôle des frontières ou de contrôle de l'immigration - et rappelons-nous que 99,9 % des visiteurs de l'Union européenne sont des voyageurs légitimes qui n'ont aucun lien avec la criminalité, pas plus que les immigrants illégaux ou les arrivants en séjour illégal. Le fait d'être en séjour illégal sur un territoire n'est pas un crime en soi. Je suis désolée de devoir prendre autant de temps pour le signaler.
Le VIS deviendra la plus grande base de données biométriques du monde, donnant des détails sur environ 20 millions de demandeurs, contenant à tout moment 70 millions de jeux d'empreintes digitales. Les systèmes biométriques peuvent améliorer mais également envahir la vie privée, et la même rigueur appliquée au VIS a été appliquée à la mise en place de garanties pour d'autres systèmes biométriques existants ou futurs. C'est encore plus important dans le domaine de l'éventuelle interopérabilité future, voire de l'interconnexion, qui menacerait grandement la vie privée, comme l'ont dit les autorités chargées de la protection des données, dont le commissaire britannique à l'information Richard Thomas.
En notre qualité de législateurs, nous devons veiller à faire tout ce qui est en notre pouvoir pour maximiser les avantages et minimiser les risques des nouvelles technologies. La codécision implique une coresponsabilité, et partant, la mise en œuvre, la surveillance et l'évaluation seront des éléments importants du projet. Le Parlement doit être tenu pleinement informé des résultats du test du système qui, je l'espère, sera concluant, et permettra l'entrée en vigueur en douceur du système. Dans la législation communautaire, nous aimons trop ajouter des clauses de révision qui restent lettre morte. Cela ne doit pas se produire avec le VIS.
Je voudrais terminer en soulignant deux autres questions importantes. Le Conseil s'est engagé dans deux déclarations politiques à présenter prochainement un accord satisfaisant sur deux lois essentielles. La première est la décision-cadre sur la protection des données dont nous avons tant parlé cet après-midi: la mise en place de règles adéquates pour l'échange de données en matière de sécurité, y compris celles qu'obtiendra la police en accédant au VIS; la deuxième est la «directive sur les retours».
Il est inutile de dire pourquoi ces instruments revêtent une telle importance aux yeux de l'Europe et de ses citoyens, et je voudrais juste demander au Conseil de tenir ses engagements politiques.
La Commission a présenté ses propositions sur le système d'information sur les visas il y a deux ans et demi, et nous avons négocié, souvent de manière intense, pendant près d'un an et demi. Je suis donc très heureuse que nous soyons parvenus à un accord fort et équilibré sur ces deux propositions législatives extrêmement complexes, un règlement et une décision.
Je voudrais remercier la présidence allemande, et en particulier le ministre de l'intérieur, Wolfgang Schäuble, mais également M. Altmaier, pour l'engagement politique fort qu'ils ont pris dans ces dossiers, ainsi que les présidences antérieures, en particulier la présidence finlandaise, qui a également travaillé dur pour parvenir à un accord. Dans ma longue liste de remerciements, je voudrais également mentionner la Commission, en particulier le vice-président Frattini, qui a mis la main à la pâte, nous accompagnant tout au long de la procédure et facilitant l'accord final. Je sais également que cela n'aurait pas été possible sans l'aide des rapporteurs fictifs - M. Cashman et Mmes Klamt, Kaufmann et Ždanoka - que je remercie. Enfin, je voudrais exprimer ma plus sincère reconnaissance au personnel du Parlement, qui a énormément travaillé et qui a été d'une aide précieuse. Mon assistante, Alexandra, mérite des remerciements particuliers, elle a été tout à fait exceptionnelle.
Je voudrais à présent faire une remarque institutionnelle importante. Nous avons abordé ici deux propositions, une dans le cadre de la procédure de codécision et l'autre, dans le cadre de la procédure de consultation, mais nous avons en réalité réussi à les traiter ensemble, de sorte que nous avons atteint une quasi-codécision sur une mesure du troisième pilier également.
L'accord prouve que le Parlement est un partenaire valable dans la procédure de codécision sur des questions hautement complexes dans le domaine de la justice et des affaires intérieures. Il prouve également que la séparation entre le premier et le troisième pilier est tout simplement absurde et inefficace. La participation du Parlement européen sur un pied d'égalité aux décisions législatives dans le domaine de la coopération policière et judiciaire en matière pénale ne peut que renforcer la légitimité des mesures adoptées dans ce domaine. Je voudrais donc profiter de cette occasion pour demander instamment aux dirigeants qui se réuniront le 21 juin de se mettre d'accord, en général, pour lever les vétos nationaux dans ce domaine.
Pour passer au contenu de notre accord, je pense que nous avons atteint les objectifs que j'avais fixés au départ, à savoir avoir un système doté d'objectifs, de règles et de responsabilités clairs, et un système qui contribue surtout fortement à la sécurité et à la bonne gestion des frontières. Il facilitera également réellement les choses pour les voyageurs légitimes, qui composent la majorité des personnes auxquelles des visas Schengen ont été délivrés, et il renforcera la sécurité intérieure.
Le Parlement a introduit une clarté et une rigueur bien plus grandes dans le VIS (système d'information sur les visas), limitant le risque d'abus ou de défaillance, et donnant aux citoyens le droit de recevoir réparation en cas d'erreur. Je suis sûre que le système que nous avons mis en place apportera une sécurité adéquate et un juste respect des droits et des libertés civiles des citoyens. Plusieurs autres améliorations ont été introduites au niveau de la protection et de la sécurité des données, des procédures de repli pour l'utilisation des données biométriques, des règles d'accès, d'utilisation et de transfert renforcées, et des pouvoirs de contrôle pour les autorités chargées de la protection des données.
Il y a un élément nouveau qui constitue une réalisation très positive du Parlement et qui devrait être considéré comme un précédent: l'accès des autorités chargées de l'application des lois à la base de données du VIS. Après des négociations assez difficiles, les États membres
reconnu que le VIS n'était pas dans l'essence un instrument d'application de la loi et que dès lors, l'accès des services de police ou de renseignement ne peut être un accès direct, mais doit être un accès indirect et supervisé par un système de filtrage par des points d'accès centraux. Ces derniers vérifieront la légitimité de chaque demande, même si, vu que le Parlement se soucie tout autant que les États membres de disposer d'instruments adéquats pour s'attaquer à la criminalité et au terrorisme, nous nous sommes mis d'accord sur une procédure réservée aux cas
d'urgence dont le principe sera «demander d'abord, justifier ensuite», procédure qui couvrira les cas exceptionnels de menaces imminentes."@fr8
"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@hu11
"Signor Presidente, desidero iniziare il mio intervento associandomi all’indirizzo di benvenuto da lei rivolto ai nostri importanti ospiti. Prima di illustrarvi le osservazioni che ho preparato – e impiegherò meno di dieci minuti, con vostro, ne sono certa, grande sollievo – temo di dover accennare a una nota dolente, ovvero il fatto che questo tema è iscritto all’ordine del giorno come discussione congiunta sulla cooperazione transfrontaliera, lotta al terrorismo e alla criminalità. Sullo schermo sta scritto semplicemente che questa è una discussione sul terrorismo. Nella sua introduzione, il Presidente in carica del Consiglio Altmaier ha annunciato che avremmo parlato di tre progetti sulle attività di polizia transfrontaliere. Bene, le mie considerazioni riguardano per la maggior parte il regolamento che istituisce il sistema di informazione sui visti, che è un sistema di gestione dei confini la cui finalità principale non è la lotta al terrorismo e alla criminalità. Mi dispiace, ma non posso assolutamente essere d’accordo con la scelta del titolo di questa discussione perché ritengo che una formulazione così imprecisa dia l’impressione che il nostro intento è quello di istituire un controllo alle frontiere o creare una banca dati per il monitoraggio dell’immigrazione – e non dimentichiamo che il 99,9 per cento di coloro che entrano nell’Unione europea sono viaggiatori in regola, senza alcun legame con ambienti criminali, e che lo stesso vale per gli immigrati clandestini e altre persone arrivate nell’UE in modo non autorizzato. Trovarsi in un territorio senza averne l’autorizzazione non è, di per sé, un reato penale. Mi spiace aver dovuto impiegare così tanto tempo per precisare questo punto.
In qualità di legislatori, abbiamo il dovere di assicurare che stiamo facendo del nostro meglio per massimizzare i benefici e minimizzare i rischi insiti nelle nuove tecnologie. Codecisione significa corresponsabilità; dunque, una parte importante del progetto consisterà nel controllo della sua attuazione e nella valutazione. Il Parlamento dovrà essere pienamente informato sulla verifica del sistema, che mi auguro darà esiti positivi e consentirà così al sistema di diventare operativo senza intoppi. La legislazione comunitaria è piena di clausole di revisione che restano lettera morta; non dovrà accadere lo stesso con il sistema di informazione sui visti.
Concludo ricordando altre due questioni rilevanti. Il Consiglio si è impegnato, con due dichiarazioni politiche, a presentare entro tempi brevi un accordo soddisfacente su due disposizioni di fondamentale importanza. La prima è la decisione quadro sulla protezione dei dati, di cui abbiamo ampiamente parlato stasera e che riguarda l’adozione di norme adeguate per lo scambio di dati connessi con la sicurezza, compresi quelli che la polizia otterrà accedendo al sistema di informazione sui visti. La seconda è la cosiddetta direttiva sul rimpatrio.
L’importanza di questi strumenti per l’Europa e i suoi cittadini è ovvia ed evidente; desidero pertanto sollecitare il Consiglio a mantenere gli impegni politici che ha assunto.
Sono passati due anni e mezzo da quando la Commissione ha avanzato le sue proposte sul sistema di informazione sui visti, e abbiamo avuto quasi un anno e mezzo di negoziati spesso intensi. Sono quindi molto lieta che siamo riusciti a concludere un accordo forte ed equilibrato su queste due proposte legislative, estremamente complesse, nonché su un regolamento e una decisione.
Ringrazio la Presidenza tedesca, in particolare il ministro degli Interni Wolfgang Schäuble, ma anche il Presidente Altmaier, per il loro forte impegno politico su questi
; ringrazio altresì le presidenze precedenti, specialmente quella finlandese, che si sono anch’esse prodigate per giungere a un accordo. Nel mio lungo elenco di ringraziamenti non posso tralasciare la Commissione e soprattutto il Vicepresidente Frattini, che ci ha fornito un aiuto molto concreto accompagnandoci durante questo processo e facilitando il raggiungimento dell’accordo finale. So anche che questo risultato non sarebbe stato possibile senza il sostegno di tutti i relatori ombra – gli onorevoli Cashman, Klamt, Kaufmann e Ždanoka –, cui va la mia gratitudine. Infine, rivolgo un sentito ringraziamento ai servizi del Parlamento, che hanno lavorato moltissimo fornendo un contributo inestimabile. Un grazie speciale va alla mia assistente personale Alexandra, che è stata assolutamente superba.
Voglio fare un’importante precisazione istituzionale. Ci siamo occupati di due proposte, una secondo la procedura di codecisione e l’altra secondo la procedura di consultazione; in realtà, però, siamo riusciti ad affrontarle come un pacchetto unico, raggiungendo così una sorta di codecisione anche sulla misura relativa al terzo pilastro.
L’accordo raggiunto dimostra che il Parlamento è un
affidabile in sede di codecisione su questioni altamente complesse afferenti la giustizia e gli affari interni. Dimostra inoltre che la separazione tra il primo e il terzo pilastro è semplicemente inefficiente e assurda. Coinvolgere il Parlamento europeo su un piano di parità nelle decisioni riguardanti la legislazione sulla cooperazione giudiziaria e di polizia in campo penale non può che rafforzare la legittimità dei provvedimenti adottati al riguardo. Colgo perciò quest’occasione per sollecitare i
che parteciperanno al Vertice del 21 giugno a trovare un’intesa sull’eliminazione dei veti nazionali in questo settore come regola generale.
Passando ora al contenuto dell’accordo, credo che siamo riusciti a raggiungere quelli che erano i miei obiettivi sin dall’inizio: avere un sistema con finalità, regole e responsabilità ben delineate, un sistema che dia innanzi tutto un significativo contributo affinché le nostre frontiere siano sicure e gestite correttamente. Inoltre, tale sistema faciliterà la vita ai viaggiatori legali, che sono la maggioranza di coloro che hanno un visto Schengen, e migliorerà la sicurezza interna.
Il Parlamento ha fornito un rilevante apporto in termini di chiarezza e rigore al sistema di informazione sui visti, riducendo i rischi di abusi o malfunzionamenti e riconoscendo ai cittadini il diritto di essere risarciti in caso di errori. Sono fiduciosa che questo sistema non solo garantirà un adeguato livello di sicurezza, ma rispetterà anche i diritti delle persone e le libertà civili. Sono state introdotte molte altre migliorie per quanto riguarda la protezione e la sicurezza dei dati, le procedure di
per l’utilizzo dei dati biometrici, l’inasprimento delle norme che regolamentano l’accesso, l’uso e il trasferimento, nonché i poteri di controllo delle autorità responsabili della protezione dei dati.
L’elemento di novità è rappresentato da un risultato molto positivo che il Parlamento è riuscito a ottenere e che dovrebbe costituire un precedente. Si tratta dell’accesso alla banca dati del sistema di informazione sui visti da parte delle forze di polizia. Dopo trattative alquanto difficili, gli Stati membri hanno infine riconosciuto che questo sistema non è in prima istanza uno strumento di applicazione della legge e che pertanto qualsiasi accesso da parte dei servizi di polizia o
non può essere diretto e immediato, bensì sarà indiretto, controllato e filtrato attraverso punti di accesso centrali, dove sarà verificata la legittimità di ogni richiesta. Tuttavia, poiché anche al Parlamento, al pari degli Stati membri, preme che siano predisposti strumenti idonei a contrastare la criminalità e il terrorismo, abbiamo concordato una procedura d’urgenza per i casi di emergenza che può essere sintetizzata come “prima chiedi, poi giustifica”, da applicarsi in situazioni eccezionali di minacce incombenti.
Il sistema di informazione sui visti sarà la più ampia banca dati biometrica al mondo, conterrà informazioni relative a circa 20 milioni di richiedenti e conserverà le impronte digitali di 70 milioni di persone alla volta. La raccolta dei dati biometrici può rafforzare la tutela della vita privata ma anche costituire un’invasione della
e lo stesso rigore che ha informato questo sistema dovrà essere applicato per garantire la sicurezza anche di altri sistemi biometrici, sia già esistenti che di futura realizzazione. Ciò è tanto più importante laddove è in gioco una possibile interoperatività futura o addirittura un’interconnessione tra sistemi diversi, che potrebbe comportare gravi rischi per la
come hanno osservato le autorità responsabili della protezione dei dati, tra cui il Commissario britannico all’informazione Richard Thomas."@it12
"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@lt14
"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@lv13
"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@mt15
"Mijnheer de Voorzitter, allereerst sluit ik me aan bij uw woorden van welkom aan onze zeer belangrijke bezoekers. Ik zal, ongetwijfeld tot uw grote opluchting, proberen binnen de tien minuten te blijven, maar voordat ik inga op de punten die ik heb voorbereid, heb ik eerst een punt van kritiek, namelijk dat dit debat is aangekondigd als een gecombineerd debat over grensoverschrijdende samenwerking, bestrijding van terrorisme en misdaad. Op het scherm staat alleen maar dat dit een debat over terrorisme is. De heer Altmaier zei in zijn inleiding dat we drie grensoverschrijdende politieprojecten zouden gaan bespreken. Welnu, het grootste deel van wat ik te zeggen heb, gaat over de verordening voor het opzetten van het Visuminformatiesysteem. VIS is een grensbeheersysteem en het voornaamste doel ervan is niet de bestrijding van terrorisme en misdaad. Het spijt me, maar ik heb ernstige bezwaren tegen de benaming van dit debat. Ik ben namelijk van mening dat door dergelijke slordigheden de indruk wordt gewekt dat er een gegevensbestand voor grenscontrole of immigratiecontrole wordt opgezet. Ook moeten we niet vergeten dat 99,9 procent van de bezoekers aan de Europese Unie legale reizigers zijn die helemaal niets met misdaad te maken hebben. Dat geldt trouwens ook voor de illegale immigranten of illegaal binnengekomen personen. Het is op zich geen misdrijf om je illegaal op een bepaald grondgebied te bevinden. Het spijt me dat ik zo uitgebreid bij dit punt moet stilstaan.
We moeten als wetgevers alles in het werk stellen om de voordelen van de nieuwe technologieën optimaal te benutten en de risico’s ervan tot een minimum te beperken. Medebeslissing betekent medeverantwoordelijkheid, en daarom vormen controle op de tenuitvoerlegging en evaluatie een belangrijk onderdeel van het project. Het Parlement moet volledig op de hoogte worden gehouden van systeemtests, die hopelijk een positieve uitkomst hebben en een soepele inwerkingtreding van het systeem mogelijk maken. Wij zijn in onze EU-wetgeving nogal dol op herzieningsclausules die alleen maar op papier bestaan. Dat moeten we bij het VIS zien te voorkomen.
Tot slot wil ik nog twee andere belangrijke kwesties naar voren halen. De Raad heeft zich er via twee politieke verklaringen toe verplicht om spoedig met een bevredigende overeenkomst over twee cruciale stukken wetgeving te komen. Het eerste is het kaderbesluit inzake gegevensbescherming waarover we het vanavond uitgebreid hebben: goede regels voor de uitwisseling van gegevens met betrekking tot veiligheid, onder andere voor toegang van de politie tot VIS. Het tweede betreft de zogenaamde terugkeerrichtlijn.
Het behoeft geen betoog dat deze instrumenten heel belangrijk zijn voor Europa en zijn burgers en ik dring er bij de Raad op aan om zijn politieke verplichtingen na te komen.
Het is tweeënhalf jaar geleden dat de Commissie haar voorstellen betreffende het Visuminformatiesysteem indiende, en we hebben bijna anderhalf jaar lang vaak intensief onderhandeld. Ik ben dus heel blij dat we een sterke en evenwichtige overeenkomst hebben bereikt over deze twee hoogst ingewikkelde wetgevingsvoorstellen, een verordening en een besluit.
Ik dank het Duitse voorzitterschap, met name de minister van Binnenlandse Zaken, Wolfgang Schäuble, maar ook de heer Altmaier, voor de grote politieke betrokkenheid bij deze dossiers, en ik dank ook de vorige voorzitterschappen, met name het Finse voorzitterschap, die ook hard aan een overeenkomst hebben gewerkt. Op mijn lange bedanklijst staat ook de Commissie, met name vice-voorzitter Frattini, die ons tijdens het hele proces en bij de totstandkoming van de definitieve overeenkomst met raad en daad heeft bijgestaan. Ik weet ook dat dit resultaat niet mogelijk was geweest zonder de steun van alle schaduwrapporteurs - de heer Cashman, mevrouw Klamt, mevrouw Kaufmann en mevrouw Ždanoka - die ik daarvoor zeer erkentelijk ben. Tot slot dank ik het personeel van het Parlement van harte voor de enorme hoeveelheid werk die het heeft verricht en die van onschatbare waarde is geweest. Mijn eigen assistente, Alexandra, ben ik speciale dank verschuldigd. Ze was werkelijk voortreffelijk.
Ik wil graag een belangrijke institutionele kwestie naar voren brengen. We hadden hier met twee voorstellen te maken, een voorstel volgens de medebeslissingsprocedure en een voorstel volgens de raadplegingsprocedure, maar in feite zijn we erin geslaagd om ze als pakket te behandelen, waardoor ook sprake was van quasi-medebeslissing ten aanzien van de derdepijlermaatregel.
De overeenkomst toont aan dat het Parlement een volwaardige partner is bij de medebeslissing over zeer ingewikkelde kwesties op het gebied van justitie en binnenlandse zaken. Er blijkt ook uit dat de scheiding tussen de eerste en de derde pijler ronduit ondoelmatig en absurd is. Als we het Europees Parlement als gelijkwaardige partner betrekken bij besluiten over wetgeving inzake politiële en justitiële samenwerking in strafzaken, winnen de maatregelen waartoe op dit terrein wordt besloten, alleen maar aan legitimiteit. Daarom dring ik er bij deze gelegenheid bij de leiders die tijdens de top van 21 juni bijeenkomen, op aan om de nationale veto’s op dit gebied bij wijze van algemene regel op te heffen.
Dan de inhoud van onze overeenkomst. Ik vind dat we erin geslaagd zijn om de doelstellingen die ik vanaf het begin voor ogen had, te bereiken, dat wil zeggen een systeem met duidelijke doelstellingen, regels en verantwoordelijkheden dat eerst en vooral bijdraagt aan veilige en goed beheerde grenzen. Het systeem zal ook echte facilitering bieden voor legale reizigers, die het merendeel uitmaken van alle reizigers met een Schengen-visum, en het zal tevens een verbetering van de binnenlandse veiligheid opleveren.
Dankzij het Parlement is het VIS nu helderder en strenger, is de kans op misbruik of het slecht functioneren ervan verkleind en hebben de burgers het recht op verhaal in geval van fouten. Ik vertrouw erop dat het systeem dat we hebben opgezet, zal zorgen voor veiligheid en respect voor de rechten en burgerlijke vrijheden van de mensen. Er zijn veel andere verbeteringen doorgevoerd op het gebied van gegevensbescherming en -beveiliging: fall-back-procedures voor het gebruik van biometrie, strengere regels voor toegang, gebruik en overdracht, en controlebevoegdheden voor gegevensbeschermingsautoriteiten.
Er is één nieuw onderdeel dat als een heel bijzondere prestatie van het Parlement en als een precedent moet worden gezien, namelijk toegang tot de VIS-gegevensbank door wetshandhavingsautoriteiten. Na zware onderhandelingen erkenden de lidstaten uiteindelijk dat het VIS niet in de eerste plaats een wetshandhavingsinstrument is en dat politie- en inlichtingendiensten derhalve niet rechtstreeks toegang tot VIS mogen hebben, maar indirect en gefilterd via centrale toegangspunten, waar de rechtmatigheid van ieder verzoek wordt gecontroleerd. Maar omdat het Parlement net zoveel belang hecht aan adequate instrumenten om misdaad en terrorisme te bestrijden als de lidstaten, hebben we met het oog op uitzonderlijke gevallen, waarbij sprake is van een bedreigende situatie, een urgentieprocedure afgesproken waarbij het verzoek eerst wordt ingewilligd en later wordt verantwoord.
Het VIS wordt de grootste biometrische gegevensbank ter wereld, met gegevens van zo’n twintig miljoen aanvragers en zeventig miljoen vingerafdrukken. Biometrie kan de privacy ten goede komen maar kan deze ook schaden, en zo streng als we te werk zijn gegaan bij het VIS zo streng moeten we ook zijn bij het inbouwen van waarborgen voor andere bestaande of toekomstige biometrische systemen. Dat is van nog groter belang als het in de toekomst mogelijk gaat om interoperabiliteit of zelfs vervlechting, waarbij de privacy ernstig in gevaar kan komen, zoals autoriteiten voor gegevensbescherming - waaronder de Britse commissaris voor informatie Richard Thomas - hebben aangegeven."@nl3
"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@pl16
"Senhor Presidente, talvez deva começar por subscrever as suas saudações a tão importantes visitantes. Antes de me debruçar sobre as observações que quero fazer – e tentarei não usar os dez minutos, tenho a certeza de que com grande alívio vosso –, receio bem que não possa deixar de começar por uma nota ligeiramente negativa que se prende com o facto de este debate ser anunciado como uma discussão conjunta sobre cooperação transfronteiriça, combate ao terrorismo e ao crime. No visor diz simplesmente que este é um debate sobre terrorismo. Na sua introdução, o Senhor Presidente em exercício do Conselho, Peter Altmaier, disse que íamos falar acerca de três propostas no domínio da cooperação policial transfronteiriça. Bem, a maior parte da minha intervenção centrar-se-á no regulamento que cria o Sistema de Informação sobre Vistos (VIS), que é um sistema de gestão fronteiriça. O seu principal propósito não é combater o terrorismo e o crime. Lamento, mas tenho sérias objecções a fazer ao título atribuído a este debate, pois considero que são estes raciocínios pouco rigorosos que nos levam à ideia de que foi criado um controlo fronteiriço ou uma base de dados para o controlo da imigração – e lembremo-nos que 99,9% dos visitantes da União Europeia são viajantes legítimos que não têm qualquer tipo de ligação com actividades criminosas, o mesmo acontecendo, na realidade, com os imigrantes ilegais ou com as pessoas que entram de forma ilegal. A permanência irregular num território não é em si uma infracção penal. Desculpem por me ter alongado um pouco a fazer esta observação.
Nós, como legisladores, temos necessariamente de fazer o nosso melhor para maximizar os benefícios e minimizar os riscos das novas tecnologias. A co-decisão implica co-responsabilidade e, por conseguinte, uma boa parte do projecto corresponderá à implementação-controlo e avaliação. O Parlamento tem de ser informado na íntegra sobre os testes ao sistema, que, espero, sejam positivos e permitam que a entrada em funcionamento do sistema se processe sem sobressaltos. Na legislação da UE, gostamos muito de incluir cláusulas de revisão que depois não passam de letra morta. Isso não pode acontecer com o VIS.
Gostaria de terminar salientando duas questões importantes. O Conselho comprometeu-se, através de duas declarações políticas, a chegar, em breve, a um acordo satisfatório sobre duas peças legislativas de relevo. A primeira é a decisão-quadro sobre a protecção de dados tão falada esta noite: introduzir regras adequadas para o intercâmbio de dados relacionados com a segurança, incluindo os que a polícia obterá com o acesso ao VIS. A segunda é a chamada “directiva relativa ao regresso”.
É desnecessário dizer por que razão estes instrumentos são tão importantes para a Europa e os seus cidadãos, pelo que insto o Conselho a honrar os seus compromissos políticos.
Faz dois anos e meio que a Comissão apresentou as suas propostas sobre o Sistema de Informação sobre Vistos, e tivemos praticamente um ano e meio de intensas e frequentes negociações. Como tal, regozijo-me muitíssimo por termos chegado a um acordo consistente e equilibrado relativamente a estas duas propostas legislativas altamente complexas, um regulamento e uma decisão.
Gostaria de agradecer à Presidência alemã, em especial ao Ministro do Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, mas também ao Presidente em exercício do Conselho, Peter Altmaier, o seu grande empenho político nestes dossiês, bem como a anteriores Presidências, nomeadamente a Presidência finlandesa, que trabalhou arduamente para se chegar a um acordo. Na minha longa lista de agradecimentos, quero também agradecer à Comissão, em particular ao Vice-Presidente Frattini, que foi incansável, acompanhando-nos ao longo de todo processo e facilitando um acordo final. Também sei que este resultado não teria sido possível sem o apoio de todos os relatores-sombra – o senhor deputado Cashman, e as senhoras deputadas Klamt, Kaufmann e Ždanoka – a quem gostaria de expressar os meus agradecimentos. Por último, gostaria de agradecer muito especialmente aos funcionários do Parlamento que trabalharam afincadamente nesta matéria e que foram inexcedíveis. A minha própria assistente, Alexandra, merece um agradecimento especial. Ela foi absolutamente fantástica.
Gostaria de fazer uma observação importante de carácter institucional. Trabalhámos em duas propostas, uma em processo de co-decisão e outra de consulta, mas na realidade conseguimos tratá-las como um pacote, pelo que praticamente houve um processo de co-decisão para uma medida que é do âmbito do terceiro pilar.
O acordo mostra que o Parlamento é um parceiro válido num processo de co-decisão em torno de questões altamente complexas na área da justiça e dos assuntos internos. Também mostra que a separação entre o primeiro e o terceiro pilares é simplesmente ineficaz e absurda. Envolver o Parlamento Europeu, em pé de igualdade, em decisões de carácter legislativo no âmbito da cooperação policial e judiciária em matéria penal não pode senão aumentar a legitimidade das medidas decididas nessa área. Aproveitaria, pois, esta oportunidade para instar os dirigentes reunidos para a Cimeira de 21 de Junho a acordarem a eliminação do direito de veto nacional neste domínio como uma regra geral.
Voltando ao conteúdo do nosso acordo, penso que conseguimos alcançar o que eram os meus objectivos desde o início: dispor de um sistema dotado de propósitos bem definidos, regras e responsabilidades e que represente, em primeiro lugar e sobretudo, uma contribuição significativa para a boa gestão e segurança das fronteiras. Na verdade, facilitará também a vida aos viajantes legais, que são a maioria dos titulares do visto Schengen, assim como introduz melhorias ao nível da segurança interna.
O Parlamento introduziu muito mais clareza e rigor no VIS, limitando os riscos de abuso ou mau funcionamento e dando aos cidadãos o direito de receber indemnização por danos ocorridos. Estou confiante em que o sistema que preparámos proporcione tanto a segurança adequada como o respeito pelas liberdades civis e direitos dos cidadãos. Foram introduzidas muitas outras melhorias em termos de protecção de dados e segurança de dados, procedimentos de recurso para o uso de dados biométricos, regras reforçadas para o acesso, uso e transferência e competências em matéria de controlo para as autoridades responsáveis pela protecção de dados.
Há um novo elemento que representa uma conquista muito positiva do Parlamento e deve ser visto como um exemplo. Diz respeito ao acesso pelas autoridades responsáveis pela aplicação da lei à base de dados do VIS. Depois de negociações bastante difíceis, os Estados-Membros
que, de facto, o VIS não é originalmente um instrumento de aplicação da lei e que, portanto, qualquer acesso dos serviços de polícia ou de informação não pode ser um acesso disponível e directo, mas sim indirecto e supervisionado, mediante uma filtragem, por parte dos pontos de acesso central. Estes controlarão a legitimidade de cada pedido, ainda que, uma vez que o Parlamento está tão preocupado, tal como os Estados-Membros, em dispor de instrumentos adequados para fazer face à criminalidade e ao terrorismo, tivéssemos concordado com um procedimento de urgência que prevê a possibilidade de “pedir primeiro, justificar depois”, que cobrirá casos excepcionais de ameaças iminentes.
O VIS tornar-se-á a maior base de dados biométricos do mundo, com dados pormenorizados de cerca de 20 milhões de requerentes, dispondo a qualquer momento de 70 milhões de conjuntos de impressões digitais. Os dados biométricos podem reforçar mas também invadir a privacidade, e o mesmo rigor que foi aplicado ao VIS terá de ser aplicado na elaboração de salvaguardas para outros sistemas biométricos existentes ou futuros. Esta questão reveste-se ainda de maior importância quando se coloca a possibilidade de uma futura interoperabilidade ou mesmo interconexão, o que poderá pôr a privacidade seriamente em risco, tal como as autoridades responsáveis pela protecção de dados – incluindo o Comissário de Informação britânico, Richard Thomas – afirmaram."@pt17
"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@ro18
"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@sk19
"Mr President, perhaps I could start by endorsing your welcome to those very important visitors. Before I turn to my prepared remarks – and I will try not to take ten minutes, I am sure to your fervent relief – I am afraid I just wish to start on a slightly negative note, which is that this is billed as a joint debate on cross-border cooperation, combating terrorism and crime. Up on the screen it just says that it is a debate about terrorism. In his introduction, Mr Altmaier said that we were going to talk about three cross-border policing projects. Well, the major part of what I want to speak about is the regulation setting up the Visa Information System, which is a border-management system. Its principal purpose is not combating terrorism and crime. I am sorry, but I take severe objection to the labelling of this debate, because I think sloppy thinking like this is what leads us into the idea that you set up a border control or immigration control database – and let us remember that 99.9% of visitors to the European Union are legitimate travellers who do not have any connection with criminality whatsoever, nor indeed do illegal immigrants or unauthorised entrants. It is not itself a criminal offence to be unauthorised on a territory. I am sorry to take up rather a lot of time making that point.
We must make sure as legislators that we do our best to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the new technologies. Codecision means co-responsibility, and therefore an important part of the project will be implementation-monitoring and evaluation. Parliament must be kept fully informed on the testing of the system, which I hope will be positive and allow the smooth entry into operation of the system. In EU legislation we are rather too fond of putting in review clauses that remain a dead letter. This must not happen with the VIS.
I would like to finish by highlighting two other important issues. The Council has committed itself through two political declarations to coming up soon with a satisfactory agreement on two crucial pieces of legislation. The first of these is the framework decision on data protection that we are talking a lot about this evening: bringing in proper rules for exchanging the security related data, including that which police will get for accessing the VIS. The second is the so-called ‘return directive’.
It is unnecessary to say why these instruments are so important for Europe and its citizens and I would just urge the Council to keep to its political commitments.
It is two and a half years since the Commission made its proposals on the Visa Information System and we have had nearly a year and a half of often intense negotiations. So I am very pleased indeed that we have reached a strong and balanced agreement on these two highly complex legislative proposals, a regulation and a decision.
I would like to thank the German Presidency, in particular Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, but also Mr Altmaier, for their strong political commitment to these dossiers, as well as previous presidencies, in particular the Finnish Presidency, which also worked hard towards an agreement. In my long list of thanks, I also want to thank the Commission, in particular Vice-President Frattini, who was very hands-on in accompanying us throughout the process and in facilitating the final agreement. I also know that this result would not have been possible without the support of all the shadow rapporteurs – Mr Cashman, Mrs Klamt, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Ždanoka – to whom I would like to express my gratitude. Finally, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Parliament staff who put a huge amount of work in and were invaluable. My own assistant, Alexandra, deserves special thanks. She has been absolutely superb.
I would like to make an important institutional point. We have dealt here with two proposals, one in codecision and the other in consultation, but in reality we managed to treat them as a package, so we achieved quasi-codecision on the third-pillar measure as well.
The agreement shows that Parliament is a valid partner in codecision on highly complex justice and home affairs matters. It also shows that the separation between the first and the third pillars is simply inefficient and absurd. Involving the European Parliament on an equal footing in deciding legislation in police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters cannot but increase the legitimacy of the measures decided in this area. So I would take this opportunity to urge leaders gathered for the Summit on 21 June to agree on lifting national vetoes in this area as a general rule.
Turning to the content of our agreement, I think we have managed to achieve what were my goals from the beginning: to have a system with clear purposes, rules and responsibilities and one which represents first and foremost a significant contribution to secure and well-managed borders. It will also deliver real facilitation for lawful travellers, who are the majority of those issued with Schengen visas, as well as an improvement in internal security.
Parliament has introduced much more clarity and rigour into the VIS, limiting the risk of abuse or malfunction and giving citizens the right to receive redress for mistakes. I am confident the system we have built will deliver both proper security and respect for people’s rights and civil liberties. Many other improvements have been introduced in terms of data protection and data security, fall-back procedures for the use of biometrics, strengthened rules on access, use and transfer, and monitoring powers for data protection authorities.
One new element represents a very positive achievement by Parliament and should be seen as a precedent. It concerns access by law enforcement authorities to the VIS database. After quite difficult negotiations, Member States
recognise that the VIS is not primarily a law enforcement tool and that therefore any access by police or intelligence services cannot be direct on-tap access, but must be indirect and supervised through filtering by central access points. These will check the legitimacy of each request, though since Parliament is just as concerned as Member States to have adequate tools to tackle crime and terrorism, we have agreed on an urgency procedure for emergencies of ‘request first, justify later’, which will cover exceptional cases of imminent threats.
The VIS will become the largest biometric database in the world, with details of around 20 million applicants, at any one time holding 70 million sets of fingerprints. Biometrics can enhance but also invade privacy, and the same rigour that has been applied to the VIS has to be applied to building safeguards for other existing or future biometric systems. This is even more important when it comes to possible future interoperability or even interlinkage, which could put privacy severely at risk, as data protection authorities – including the UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas – have said."@sl20
"Herr talman! Jag kanske ska inleda med att stödja er i att välkomna våra mycket viktiga besökare. Innan jag håller mitt förberedda anförande som jag ska försöka hålla på mindre än tio minuter – till er stora lättnad, tror jag – inleder jag med en något negativ anmärkning. Denna debatt har rubricerats som en gemensam debatt om gränsöverskridande samarbete (bekämpning av terrorism och brottslighet). På skärmen där uppe står det att detta är en debatt om terrorism. Peter Altmaier inledde med att säga att vi skulle tala om tre projekt för övervakning av gränsöverskridning. Jag ska i alla fall huvudsakligen tala om bestämmelserna för informationssystemet för viseringar (VIS) som är ett gränsförvaltningssystem. Dess huvudsakliga syfte är inte bekämpning av terrorism och brottslighet. Jag ber om ursäkt, men jag vill kraftigt invända mot rubriceringen av denna debatt eftersom jag anser att det är slarv som detta som får oss att bilda uppfattning om anledningen till att vi upprättar gränskontroller eller databaser för kontroll av invandring. Låt oss inte glömma att 99,9 procent av EU:s besökare är legitima sådana som inte har någon som helst kriminell anknytning, vilket inte heller illegala invandrare eller obehöriga besökare har. Det är inte ett brott i sig att befinna sig som obehörig besökare i ett land. Jag är ledsen över att uppta ganska mycket tid med att klargöra detta.
Som lagstiftare måste vi säkerställa att vi gör vårt bästa för att maximera fördelarna och minimera riskerna med ny teknik. Medbeslutande innebär delat ansvar, och därför kommer genomförande, övervakning och utvärdering att bli en viktig del av projektet. Parlamentet måste hållas fullständigt informerat om testerna av systemet, vilka jag hoppas både kommer att bli positiva och tillåta ett smidigt påbörjande av systemet. I EU-lagstiftningen lägger vi gärna in översynsklausuler vilka förblir bestämmelser som folk struntar i. Detta får inte hända med VIS.
Avslutningsvis vill jag betona två andra viktiga frågor. Rådet har genom två politiska uttalanden förbundit sig att inom kort ta fram ett tillfredsställande avtal när det gäller två rättsakter av avgörande betydelse. Den första av dem är rambeslutet om skydd av personuppgifter som vi talar mycket om i kväll. Det handlar om att införa lämpliga bestämmelser för utbyte av säkerhetsrelaterade uppgifter, vilka omfattar dem som polisen får tillgång till via VIS. Den andra är det så kallade direktivet om återvändande.
Man behöver inte tala om varför dessa verktyg är så viktiga för EU och dess medborgare, och jag vill uppmana rådet att hålla sina politiska åtaganden.
Kommissionen lade fram sitt förslag om VIS för två och ett halvt år sedan, och under ett och ett halvt år har vi haft många gånger intensiva förhandlingar. Därför gläder det mig att vi har fått ett kraftfullt och balanserat avtal om dessa två mycket komplicerade lagstiftningsförslag som består av en förordning och ett beslut.
Jag vill tacka det tyska ordförandeskapet och i synnerhet inrikesminister Wolfgang Schäuble, men även Peter Altmaier, för deras starka politiska åtagande för dessa handlingar. Vidare vill jag även tacka de tidigare ordförandeskapen och särskilt det finska, som också har arbetat hårt för att nå ett avtal. I min långa tacklista vill jag även tacka kommissionen och i synnerhet vice ordförande Franco Frattini som har varit mycket praktisk i sitt sätt att ledsaga oss genom hela förloppet och underlätta för det slutliga avtalet. Jag är medveten om att detta resultat inte hade varit möjligt utan stöd från alla skuggföredragande, nämligen Michael Cashman, Ewa Klamt, Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann och Tatjana Ždanoka, mot vilka jag vill uttrycka min tacksamhet. Slutligen vill jag uttrycka mitt varma tack till parlamentets personal som har lagt ner ett enormt arbete och som har varit ovärderlig. Min egen assistent Alexandra förtjänar ett speciellt tack. Hon har varit fullständigt enastående.
Jag vill göra en viktig institutionell anmärkning. Vi har behandlat två förslag, det ena inom medbeslutande och det andra inom samråd. I verkligheten lyckades vi emellertid att behandla dem som ett paket, så vi åstadkom även ett halvt medbeslutande när det gäller åtgärden inom den tredje pelaren.
Avtalet visar att parlamentet är en partner att räkna med när det gäller medbeslutande om komplicerade rättsliga och inrikes frågor. Det visar även att särskiljandet av den första och den tredje pelaren helt enkelt är ineffektivt och orimligt. Genom att ställa Europaparlamentet på jämbördig fot när det gäller att besluta om lagstiftning för polisiärt och rättsligt samarbete för brottsfrågor kan man öka legitimiteten av de åtgärder som man har beslutat om inom detta område. Därför vill jag ta tillfället i akt att uppmana ledarna som har samlats inför toppmötet den 21 juni att komma överens om att göra tillbakadragandet av de nationella vetona på detta område till en generell regel.
När det gäller innehållet i vårt avtal anser jag att vi har lyckats åstadkomma vad som var mitt mål från början, nämligen ett system med tydliga syften, regler och ansvarsområden och som först och främst innebär ett betydande bidrag till säkra och välförvaltade gränser. Det kommer även att kraftigt underlätta för lagenliga resenärer, vilka utgör merparten av dem som innehar Schengenvisum samt förbättra den inre säkerheten.
VIS har tack vare parlamentet blivit tydligare och striktare genom att risken för missbruk eller funktionsproblem begränsas, och medborgarna har givits rätten till gottgörelse vid misstag. Jag är övertygad om att det system som vi har upprättat kommer att tillhandahålla både korrekt säkerhet och respekt för människors medborgerliga fri- och rättigheter. Många andra förbättringar har införts när det gäller dataskydd och datasäkerhet, ersättningsprocedurer för användning av biometri, striktare regler för tillgång, användning och överföring samt övervakningsbefogenheter för dataskyddsmyndigheter.
Parlamentet har åstadkommit ett nytt och positivt inslag, vilket bör ses som ett prejudikat. Det gäller de brottsbekämpande myndigheternas tillgång till VIS-databasen. Efter ganska svåra förhandlingar erkände faktiskt medlemsstaterna att VIS inte i första hand är ett brottsbekämpande verktyg. Därför får inte polisen eller underrättelsetjänsten direkt tillgång till VIS närhelst de vill, utan de får en indirekt och övervakad tillgång som går via ett filter av centrala åtkomstpunkter. Dessa kontrollerar legitimiteten för varje förfrågan. Parlamentet är emellertid lika angeläget som medlemsstaterna om att ha lämpliga instrument för att bekämpa brott och terrorism, och vi har därför kommit överens om en nödfallsåtgärd som innebär att fråga först och berättiga sedan och omfattar mycket ovanliga fall av omedelbara hot.
VIS kommer att bli den största databasen för biometriska uppgifter i världen med information om 20 miljoner sökanden samtidigt och innehållande 70 miljoner uppsättningar fingeravtryck. Biometri kan förbättra men även inkräkta på privatlivet. Samma strikthet som man har tillämpat på VIS måste tillämpas på att upprätta ett säkerhetssystem för andra befintliga eller framtida biometriska system. Detta blir ännu viktigare när det gäller en möjlig framtida interoperabilitet eller till och med en sammanlänkning, vilket skulle innebära en stor risk för den privata integriteten såsom både dataskyddsmyndigheterna och chefen för den brittiska dataskyddsmyndigheten, Richard Thomas, har sagt."@sv22
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