US-EU FLIGHTS AT RISK

by MONITOR
THE crucial deal on “air passenger data transfers” between the United States and the European Union should have been finalised by midnight last Saturday night which, we were told, was the absolutely ultimate deadline for the agreement. But when the clock struck twelve in Washington DC without consensus a new way of avoiding the inevitable was introduced, not by “stopping the clock” which is frequently used in international negotiations, but by declaring “a temporary breakdown”. How temporary no one knows but it is an indication of the importance of these negotiations that neither side has been willing to face the chaos that would follow if failure were to be acknowledged. At stake is the amount of information about individual passengers flying to the United States from Europe that the American authorities insist they need in order to fulfil the requirements of their Homeland Security regulations. There are believed to be some 30 or 40 items specified, ranging from credit card numbers to details of travel plans and hotel bookings, which have to be forwarded to US authorities 15 minutes before a flight's departure. This misleadingly-titled Passenger Name Records agreement was operated provisionally last year despite the misgivings of European airlines and governments but was found to be illegal by the European Court of Justice in May this year. A meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers today and tomorrow will consider whether new compromise proposals by the United States are acceptable.