Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-12-Speech-3-186"
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"en.20030312.5.3-186"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, in spite of everything, I am one of those who are still trying to understand the underlying reasons that have driven the United States to adopt this measure – we know what they are: 11 September, the climate of fear, the preparations for war and the latent threat of attack – but I am certainly also one of those who are prepared to declare openly that they can in no way accept that an ally government, notwithstanding all these reasons, should breach international agreements based above all, as in this case, on the EU Treaty.
We all know – we have already been reminded, but I shall repeat it to refresh our memories at the end of the debate – that the most serious and controversial point is that referred to in recital B of the resolution, which states that at first the United States had just asked for these data to be made available. In Italy there is a proverb that says, ‘It is fair enough to ask, but it is a courtesy to answer’; except that the United States did not have the courtesy to wait for our decision but went straight to the second stage of their action. They immediately appropriated the data, even threatening companies that did not provide the information with a fine of EUR 1000 per person.
And what information, Commissioner, Mr President! Not just passengers’ full names and details of the flight in question, but even all their credit card details, information on other trips they had made, data, for instance, that could lead back to descriptions of passengers’ ethnic and religious backgrounds, medical data, addresses of all kinds, their occupation, membership of certain groups, and so forth.
The Commission has justified this measure by saying that the airlines did not want to have the burden of creating filters and therefore gave immediate access, as they were afraid of the EUR 1000 fine, amongst other things. The Commission has also said that this would have prevented long queues for passengers arriving at the various destinations in the United States. Really, this explanation seems rather childish, to say the least: justifications that are not acceptable in that there is a complete breach – as has also been mentioned already – of Article 8 of Directive 95/46/EC, and the Commission’s role above all is to enforce the directives and hence Community law.
Another point of disagreement is this: as has been mentioned, the Commission knew a good 15 months ago that the United States was going to bring this measure into force on 5 March. Well, the Commission’s duty would have been promptly to inform the citizens of Europe and the European Parliament, which would automatically have acted as a sounding board.
The United States Congress does not seem to have had much respect for democracy either: it never discussed this measure; it simply interpreted the legislation broadly, it is said, and then moved on to action. I would say that this too is a moment of serious discourtesy.
The only point of contact is the well-known high-level agreement of 19 February, which, however, is not a written agreement and has no validity, certainly not enough for us to take to the Court of Justice. We ask the Commission what the legal basis is for this agreement and what European interests are safeguarded in this case.
In order to clarify this and other points, the European Parliament has now convened a public hearing and, perhaps, after this hearing we shall first of all know a little more about how it was possible for all this to have come about and, secondly, have a rather clearer idea especially about what it would be best to do now, while avoiding emotional schizophrenia and agreeing on joint, coherent standards to be enforced in future."@en1
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