Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-13-Speech-3-304"
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"en.20061213.30.3-304"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the representative of the Presidency has just said, many questions will be answered when we receive a detailed reply to the joint letter that we sent today.
I can tell you that we made a specific request. If the Presidency agrees and if Parliament makes a formal request, I have no problem with providing you with a copy of the letter that has been sent to the US Administration. Everyone will thus be able to see the terms of our demands. I can also add that we are not investigating the United States. The United States is a sovereign country and our main international ally in the fight against terrorism. We want to know whether an agreement is being kept or not. This is a very simple point, and I hope we will get a reply quickly.
The PNR system will be tested before the end of December, as planned. If the agreements are not being kept, we will see when the time period expires, and so I think we will also have a chance to evaluate this first test, which was confirmed in the agreement signed on 19 October.
It is clear, then, as Mrs in ’t Veld has pointed out, that the information for passengers must be given to them, since it is necessary information that has been agreed upon, and the PNR test that is to be carried out is also intended precisely as a response to this commitment made by the US authorities.
I believe bilateral agreements between the United States and Member States should be avoided and that the Member States should be persuaded to wait for and to cooperate with the European negotiations. European negotiations clearly have a great deal more force than individual Member States would have.
The more encouragement and political support we receive as European negotiators, the greater our chances of success will be. It is clearly in the United States’ interests to have a strong political negotiating partner, but not to have one that considers the US to be a danger. I do not consider the United States to be a danger, and I shall therefore commit myself to European negotiations, which are, I believe, much better than national negotiations. I am also in favour of the European Parliament and the US Congress being involved.
Mrs in ’t Veld has brought up a subject that is, itself, also political. My view is that if the European Parliament and the US Congress together ask to be kept informed or, in any case, to collaborate in the work of the high-level group that we have set up, I for one will agree, but of course I am not the only member of this high-level group.
It would, however, be useful if the two parliaments – this House and Congress – could work together. This all needs to happen quickly because, if we want to negotiate a new agreement by early spring, we shall have to ensure that the two parliaments are informed of our intentions by the end of February or the beginning of March.
The final point concerns our negotiating mandate. I have stated on several other occasions that I have no objection to informing Parliament first about the draft negotiating mandate that the Council will give us for the new PNR. It does not depend on me alone, but I think informing Parliament is also a way to achieve a stronger political consensus when we come to negotiate with the US side."@en1
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