Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are living in times in which the United States of America persists in adopting undesirable unilateral initiatives. It is unacceptable for that country to impose measures on airlines unilaterally and on pain of severe sanctions. As a matter of fact, I think that the Commission and the Council must take a careful look at whether this type of measure is entirely compatible with international agreements and conventions on air traffic and transport. As various speakers have emphasised, primarily the committee chairman, Mr Hernández Mollar, our airlines are facing a dilemma, which is on the one hand that they are obliged to comply with Union data protection rules, specifically Directive 9546 and, on the other, they are obliged, due to this US legislation, to forward this data on passengers flying to, from or within the United States, in the knowledge that if they fail to do so or do so incorrectly or incompletely, they will be hit with severe sanctions, which could range from losing landing rights to having to pay substantial fines. I agree with all the speakers who have emphasised that something is wrong in the relationship between the Commission and Parliament. It took fifteen months for the Commission to submit the matter to Parliament. It is also clear that the joint declaration by officials of 18 February does not establish a derogation for Community law and therefore does not provide a legal basis for airlines to authorise access to their data. Consequently, airlines face a real risk of being taken to court, as a result of complaints from passengers whose personal details have been forwarded to the US authorities. The directive on data protection lays down that personal data can only be forwarded to third countries if adequate protection is in place. Have the United States given us sufficient guarantees that this data will be protected? Guarantees must be provided for a definition of the reasons, for restrictions on the use of these data, for the conditions and restrictions on forwarding and sharing data, for protecting data from unauthorised access, for the duration and conditions of storage, for national measures for the protection of sensitive data, for passengers’ means of recourse to review and correct data kept by the US authorities and, finally, for conditions of reciprocity. I hope that this matter will not be omitted from the next EU-US summit, due to take place on 25 June and that the European Union will adopt a forceful stance on this. Mr President, we all reject and condemn terrorism and its criminal acts. We support the US objective of preventing and combating terrorism and we roundly condemn the appalling acts of 11 September 2001. These acts were intolerable for their blind violence and because they affected innocent citizens. We do not believe, however, that the end justifies the means. As Mr Pirker and Mrs Terrón i Cusí have said, in waging the fight against crime, the rule of law must be upheld and citizens’ rights must not be called into question. Our respect for US law must be based on mutual respect for our own legal system. Our fight for security cannot and must not call freedom into question.

Political group: PPE-DE