Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-11-Speech-3-128"
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"en.20061011.15.3-128"2
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"Mr President, I believe that in the next few months there will be a debate with Parliament – because I confirm my personal willingness and that of the Commission to maintain a political dialogue with Parliament, even when we start on the negotiation phase with the United States of America – which in my opinion must presuppose a desire for mutual understanding, based in turn on familiarity with the official records on the subject.
I have heard some Members speaking about personal data being sent to the CIA: it is simply not true. You must read the official records, honourable Members. It is clear from these that neither the CIA nor the other American secret services will have access to this data. This is a fact, established by the official documents – which we have checked. It is not true to assert that we are putting the data in question into the hands of the secret services without any checking. For this reason I am willing to engage in dialogue, but on the basis of shared data. By the same token, it is untrue to assert that data sent to the Department of Homeland Security is then sent to all the agencies. That is definitely not the case.
We send data only to those agencies that are entrusted with the task of either undertaking investigations or dealing with terrorism. These are the two conditions that place a limit on who receives the data. A request for personal data has to be made on a case-by-case basis, and the undertakings specify what is meant by ‘case-by-case'. Looked at in this way, therefore, the agreement – signed but not yet ratified – is in no way different from the earlier one. The earlier one may not please you, but it has not been changed nor made worse.
Some observations have been made concerning the entering into force of the agreement: for example, Mr Roure has referred to Article 24. You know very well, Mr Roure, that national parliaments have the right – and in some cases the obligation – to ratify agreements. You know equally well, however, that this temporary agreement has been negotiated very urgently to avoid the anarchy to which Mr Cashman has referred. Anarchy means the absence of rules and of protection and the possibility that any bunch of people could sign an agreement. It is therefore clear that we shall apply Article 24 of the agreement, including the part that states that it will come into force immediately. If we were to await all the ratifications, this agreement would come into effect after July 2007, whereupon the immediate anarchy that we wanted to avoid would be caused. We are talking about rules laid down in the Treaties, not of an interpretation of our own.
We have repeated that ‘[A]n adequate level of data protection is guaranteed’. This is a formula that existed previously. I have been asked a serious question: how can we protect the citizen or indeed the European Community if this adequate level is not maintained? Honourable Members, you know that the undertakings and the agreement envisage the possibility of denouncing the agreement and maybe of suspending it, if it were to emerge that the ‘adequate level of protection’ had not been maintained. So there are suitable instruments; and if it were necessary to resort to legal procedures, it would certainly not be for me to establish in what cases a magistrate could invoke his jurisdiction.
I have received objections to the existence of a covering letter that establishes the application of a certain jurisdiction, for example only United States jurisdiction. You know full well, however, that this letter is a unilateral act, not part of the agreement. The Commission has not agreed any dispositions concerning jurisdiction that might be contained in a unilateral letter from the State Department. Therefore it is absolutely untrue that we are surrendering our rights concerning jurisdiction. It is up to the judges to establish who can or cannot act. This will certainly not be established by the agreement under discussion.
I believe that there is another particularly important matter: the ‘push-pull’ aspect. Mrs in ‘t Velt has asked some complicated questions, seventeen in all, to which we shall naturally reply in writing: they are very technical questions, but important. However, there are other points to which I must now respond. It is simply not true that, according to the agreement, the new ‘push’ system that Parliament wants will come into force when the Americans want it. On the contrary, we have it in writing that ‘by December at the latest, the system will be operational’. The agreement therefore refers to a date that is very clear and close – one and a half months away – and, as you well know, there is a network of international airlines, headed by the Amadeus chain, that is already in a position to apply the ‘push’ system tomorrow. There thus exists the technical capacity and there is also a juridical basis, which was not contemplated in the previous agreement. This is certainly an improvement: the ‘push’ system can come into operation from tomorrow.
As far as the limited scope of the agreement is concerned, someone – I think it was again Mrs in ‘t Velt – stated that the transmission of data would no longer be justified only by the war on terrorism but also by other objectives. Points 3 and 34 of the undertakings, which have not been modified, established and still establish that, in the event of a matter of life and death, including cases other than specific investigation of terrorism, personal data may be requested. This is nothing new.
One more thing, Mr President, and I apologise for the length of my speech. I am in full agreement with what Mr Cavada and Mr Cashman said: we can also call it the ‘Transatlantic Schengen Agreement’ (I like that title). Certainly there will have to be wide-ranging political negotiations with the United States. We shall need to establish once and for all – and Parliament will also have to do this – whether the United States is, as I believe, Europe’s foremost ally in the war on terrorism, or whether it is a problem. I consider it to be our foremost ally in the war on terrorism; this being so, it is clear that, just as we Europeans have constructed the Schengen area of security and affirmation of rights, we must start doing the same thing with the United States. Otherwise, we risk forgetting that the problem is terrorism, not the US."@en1
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