In 2013, the European Parliament committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs rejected a report drafted by British conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope on a proposal on EU PNR (passenger name records). Last Tuesday, Mr Kirkhope tabled a new draft report which will be discussed today in the committee.
Ahead of the meeting, Birgit Sippel MEP, S&D spokesperson on civil liberties, justice and home affairs, said:
"The new draft report contains some changes compared to the previous one. But it is not yet clear if this is enough to meet the requirements of the fundamental rights check we now need.
"The Parliament cannot make any substantial progress on the file if the Commission does not set out in detail how the current proposal on an EU PNR system would need amending in order to be in line with the European Court of Justice judgment on the Data Retention Directive."
S&D vice-president Jörg Leichtfried MEP added:
"If the European Parliament wants to respect its commitment to working towards finalising an EU PNR directive by the end of 2015 and complying with the ECJ ruling on data retention, the Commission first has to provide us with an evaluation of the effect of that judgment on their current EU PNR proposal.
"Despite our calls, the Commission has not yet demonstrated that their draft legislation on EU PNR is legally sound and not at risk of being rejected by the ECJ as the legislation on data retention was.
"Moreover, we remind the Council that the European Parliament will not back any EU PNR agreement without the adoption of an EU Data Protection Directive: the two files need to go together
MEPs involved
S&D press contact
Related content
Find out more
