Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-12-Speech-3-180"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20030312.5.3-180"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, there can be no denying that especially since the events of 11 September stronger measures have been needed to combat terrorism, but it should equally go without saying that any measures that we implement need to have a legal basis. The United States on 5 March enacted a law that has indisputable consequences for the citizens of the European Union, for data protection and for EU legislation. The US enacted this law without concluding the necessary bilateral or multilateral negotiations and without entering into an agreement with the Union.
This – as you yourself indicated, Commissioner – has led to a problem with the airlines, which are caught in a double bind. If they do not pass on any data, they have difficulties over landing rights, leading to business problems. But if they do pass on the data as required, they run the danger of infringing EU law and being taken to court. So a horrendous problem has arisen here. This procedure is quite simply unacceptable.
The Commission is not, however, immune from criticism here, because it has been aware of this issue for 15 months and has had ample time to tackle this problem, to consult Parliament and to seek appropriate solutions. An opportunity has been missed here – yesterday was the first time we were informed of this. We now find ourselves in the position of debating something that has been in force for some time now and which involves data on our citizens being transferred to the United States without our having any real guarantees about how this data is used in practice.
Something else I am critical of is the fact that the negotiations have not been held at political level but that officials have been given the remit of reaching agreement on this, and that this has then virtually been presented to us as the legal basis for all these processes, and the citizens of the European Union have been expected to put up with this. This too is totally unacceptable.
What we expect and indeed demand is that those responsible should be held to account for allowing a situation in which data is now being passed on from the European Union without any legal basis. We in the PPE-DE Group are also calling for the scope for an action in the European Court of Justice to be investigated, and we are demanding in particular, and with immediate effect, that anything that has been illegally enacted and is now in force should be rectified. However, we also expect that cooperation with the United Nations in the fight against terror should continue, but on a proper legal footing.
We all know that we can only win the war on terror by means of international cooperation. We are therefore committed to cooperation with the United States, but let me make this clear once more – only if our rights are defended!
(
)"@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples