Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-05-Speech-3-035"
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"en.20070905.2.3-035"2
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"Mr President, democracy, civil rights and the rule of law are things I hold extremely dear; as are my own life and that of my fellow Europeans. Talking of a trade-off between the two is dangerous nonsense. Enemies of democracy must be resisted; by this I mean terrorists, but also the threat to democracy that is excessive state power and the exclusion of democratic control. Time and again we hear the Council, and to a lesser degree the Commission, talking about fundamental rights, human rights and democracy, but this rings somewhat hollow when we learn that state control of citizens is growing fast. Every intimate detail of our private lives is now known. On the other hand, however, citizens have less and less control of the state.
What is more, the national authorities and the Council refuse to be accountable. I should like the Council to tell us, for example, the situation with the High-Level Contact Group that is engaged in negotiations with the United States regarding the transfer of our private data. We are always being told that these are exploratory talks, but the United States seems to think that we are already poised to sign an agreement. What is the situation, President-in-Office? What is the negotiators’ mandate? What is the subject of the negotiations? This was discussed in Lisbon on 19 and 20 July. Why are the national parliaments and the European Parliament – European citizens – not being informed about this?
Another example is the recent US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
Mr Watson and I have asked questions about this. It is a law enabling the US to monitor almost all of our intra-European communication, telephone calls and emails. Why does the Council say that this has nothing to do with it? Does the Council not have any responsibility to protect the privacy of European citizens?
The third example is PNR. We have discussed this subject a hundred thousand times before. The ink has hardly dried on the agreement and the US has withdrawn its only good component: the application of the Privacy Act to European citizens. The Commission says that a European PNR system is to be introduced, but has there yet been an evaluation of the results of the American PNR programme? I am delighted that the Commissioner says that there is to be an evaluation and that it will cover not only implementation but also the results of the counter-terrorism policy and the impact on fundamental rights, as this is long overdue.
It is interesting that, if you criticise or ask critical questions about the counter-terrorism policy, you often find yourself described as anti-American. Yet it is actually the Americans who are asking the critical questions and who have carried out comprehensive evaluations in recent months and are putting big question marks on the effectiveness of these measures. Therefore, instead of playing copycat and adopting bad US policy, Europe must adopt good policy and join with the US to consider what is necessary and what is not."@en1
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