Europees Parlement veroordeelt overdracht informatie vliegtuigpassagiers naar VS (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - MEPs are threatening to take the Commission to the EU's top court if it does not withdraw its decision to transfer air passenger data to the US authorities.

They fear that there are insufficent guarantees that the data will be protected.

Dutch Liberal MEP Johanna Boogerd-Quaak presented the resolution which was approved by MEPs with 229 votes in favour, 202 against and 19 abstentions. Although the resolution is not legally binding, it is a political setback for the Commission.

Ms Boogerd-Quaak called on the Commission "to go back to the drawing board" and come up with a better deal.

"We are not satisfied with the privacy safeguards secured by the Commission, and we now expect them to withdraw their decision and come back with better safeguards", Ms Boogerd-Quaak said.

"If they do not, Parliament has indicated that we are willing to go to the European Court of Justice. I believe we have a good case, given the opposition of European Data Protection Commissioners to these transfers of data", she added.

The MEP believes that there should be a transfer of only 19 catagories of data instead of the current 34 and the period for which data can be retained - three and a half years -should be shortened.

The resolution adopted states that "at this stage, there is no legal basis in the European Union permitting the use of Passenger Name Record (PNR) commercial data for public security purposes".

The European Commission said that it "takes note of the Parliament's vote and will consider its next step in a further meeting of the College".

The EU and US last December agreed on a deal allowing the US access to data of passengers on transatlantic flights.

However, some major airline companies had been supplying the US with passengers' information from March 2003 as otherwise they would have faced fines or been denied landing rights in the US.

The US request to airlines to provide it with electronic access to information fields from the PNR data was taken after the 11 September attacks, when it stepped up its fight against the terrorist threat.

After the recent attacks on Madrid, the EU yesterday (30 March) agreed to install a similar measure for air carriers coming into the European Union from outside.