Ladies and gentlemen, we are now facing a fairly unusual procedure which deserves a detailed explanation so that everyone can vote in the full knowledge of what is explicitly and implicitly at stake in this matter. Last November, the majority of the European Parliament adopted a report on the creation of the Eurodac system. Following this vote, the Council modified its proposal for a regulation, stating that the Eurodac system for comparing fingerprints should be established and administered by the Council rather than the Commission. This important change is the reason why this report is being re-examined by this Chamber. In the opinion of our Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, it was the Commission rather than the Council that should be given responsibility for administering this new facility, Eurodac. Indeed, the Commission quite rightly emphasised that, as the only Community institution of the Union, it ought to have responsibility for administering a Community programme like Eurodac, and not in any circumstances the Council, which is an intergovernmental body. We wholly support the Commission on this. However, the new proposal being examined today has not taken any account whatsoever of the amendments Parliament has voted in favour of. Whether it be about specifying 18 years as the minimum age at which an applicant for asylum can be registered on the Eurodac database, about erasing personal data once legally recognised status has been acquired or about substituting the expression ‘third-country national’ for ‘alien’, the Council has not seen fit to take account of Parliament’s opinion and has been supported in this by the Commission, which has also declined to take account of it. It is in view of this situation that I am today asking you again to uphold the vote which Parliament wisely held last year. This means voting on the text adopted by the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, which includes the amendments relating to the lower age limit of 18 years, the erasing of personal data in the case of any applicant who has achieved legal status and the use of the expression ‘third-country national’ rather than ‘alien’. The amendments to the report proposed by the Group of the European People’s Party, to which the rapporteur belongs, should therefore be rejected. I really find it difficult to understand how anyone can remain silent and avoid taking sides and consider taking fingerprints from 14-year-old adolescents to be a legitimate action, when it is something which contravenes all the international treaties in force, particularly those on the rights of the child. When it comes to erasing personal data, it is just a question of being sensible. Once the applicant concerned has obtained legal status, there is in fact no justification for retaining the personal data and fingerprints of someone whose situation has been regularised in law. That would be to view him as a potential criminal. It is not solely in the future Charter that the protection of fundamental rights, close to our hearts as it is, becomes an issue, but also in every European text, where we must be vigilant in their defence. What is at stake is Parliament’s credibility in the eyes of those who already have a lot of difficulty putting their trust in us. The people of Europe find it incomprehensible, and surprising to say the least, that the European Parliament should one day come out in favour of a report only, a few months later, to go back on its decision and vote in favour of a radically different report. How can our electorate have confidence in a Parliament which changes its views according to the way the wind blows and which is incapable of facing up to the Commission and the Council which do not, for all that, have the democratic legitimacy with which we have as an institution. That is why, ladies and gentlemen, I would today ask you to vote in such a way as to reaffirm last November’s vote and to adopt the report in the form presented to you by the committee. It is in adopting coherent and consistent positions that Parliament will enhance its stature.

Political group: Verts-ALE