Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-11-Speech-3-112"
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"en.20061011.15.3-112"2
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".
Mr President, may I start by expressing my full agreement with the Presidency’s positive assessment of the value of this agreement, which has a limited time-span – up to July 2007 – but has the prime advantage of guaranteeing juridical continuity in a very sensitive subject. It also allows airlines to ensure fitting treatment of the personal data of EU nationals travelling to the United States without disrupting air traffic to and from that country.
A specific obligation has also been confirmed, namely – bearing in mind section 2 of Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union – to respect the fundamental rights of the individual in the handling of personal data. We have inserted a reference to that same Article 6, replacing the reference to a directive on data protection, because the European Court of Justice has established that that directive is not directly applicable in security matters. An important reference to European legislation would therefore have been missing. We have accordingly replaced it with a more general cross-reference – in my view, one that is still more binding – to Article 6 of the EU Treaty, where there is a reference to the fundamental rights of individuals.
To conclude, the US authorities have a commitment to continue to guarantee, also on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, an acceptable level of protection for the handling of data and therefore, obviously, the possibility of revising the application of this agreement, as has already been laid down in the earlier agreement.
The final aspect concerns confirmation of the data custody period, a subject that has not been broached. It is true that there has been a request to keep data for longer than the period foreseen by the current or previous agreement. The request came to nothing, firstly because the agreement will come to an end in July 2007 and, secondly, because we have taken the view that a subject as sensitive as the period of data retention could if necessary be a topic for later negotiations. I can assure you that the Commission intends to set in train such negotiations in January 2007, so that they will be sufficiently far advanced by the end of July 2007 for a definitive agreement to be reached.
This agreement forms part of a wider commitment. I can of course say that, during the very complex negotiations that have been in progress, both the European institutions - the Presidency and the Commission - and the United States have confirmed their willingness to start straight away on a shared project. This would cover a wider field and would thus include the reaffirmation of a common will, that of the EU and the United States, to work towards a definite agreement - the one that will enter into force after August 2007, replacing the present temporary one - and to cover the widest possible field of joint cooperation against terrorism, together with protection of the rights of the individual.
This is a much wider political perspective. As I have emphasised on many other occasions, I consider it politically necessary that Parliament should be involved with it, even though the procedures will necessarily form part of the so-called ‘third pillar’, following the decision of the European Court of Justice.
It is clear that the contents of this agreement must be considered in more depth. I already know that many honourable Members have studied it attentively. I should like to make some brief comments. Firstly, this agreement does not permit the exchange of a larger amount of data. It permits the transmission of data to other agencies which are concerned with customs and border protection and complies entirely with comparable data protection regulations.
We are not looking at a change in the agreement because, as you know very well, we have clarified the meaning of the undertakings. There was in fact a change after 2004 in the structure of the agencies, brought about by domestic United States legislation. Previously, that is to say at the beginning of 2004, there was only the United States Customs and Border Protection. Now, however, for example, we have a new interlocutor, namely the Department of Homeland Security, which we must take into account, at any rate in interpreting undertakings. The agencies that I mentioned earlier also form part of this process, which is why it is impossible not to refer to them.
What is the distinguishing feature of this interpretation? On the one hand we have to take note of the existence of various agencies; on the other we have established that United States Customs and Border Protection retains the same function as before, this agency – and only this agency – being the direct recipient of transferred data. The other agencies can obtain the data that they require from this first agency on a case-by-case basis. Thus this is not a matter of direct access to data on the part of other agencies; it is a transmission to other agencies in response to a request.
What would be the request that justified such a transmission? As I have already said, the request would be made on a case-by-case basis. We have specified that the concept ‘case-by-case’ means the indication either of a concrete threat or of a specific flight or flight-path for which information has been received that justifies the request for data. Such a request for data would be justified solely by reasons relating to anti-terrorism investigation, as has happened previously; in this respect nothing has changed. We have therefore specified that American agencies with an investigative remit other than anti-terrorism will not have access, not even on the basis of an indirect request.
The other element which is important in my opinion is, on the one hand, the impossibility of direct access and, on the other, the change in the modalities of accessing data. Many honourable Members have in the past frequently emphasised the malfunctioning or the inadequate guarantees of the so-called ‘pull’ system: that is to say, the system that permits the user to extract data direct from databases. We have in consequence requested that the system should be changed and replaced by a system of the 'push' type, as has been requested on numerous occasions by parliamentary authorities; this has been agreed.
The ‘push’ system means, as the work clearly indicates, that the data is not extracted but supplied on request. It has been agreed that the new mechanism, as we have written in the covering letter to be sent by the United States, will come into operation no later than December 2006, that is within a month and a half at the latest. The mechanism will be tested at the beginning to check its functioning, but in any case it will be operational – I repeat – by the end of this year."@en1
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