The legislative proposals which are going to be debated in MEU 2012 are the following:
Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the use of Passenger Name Record data for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime
http://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/news/intro/docs/com_2011_32_en.pdf
Legislative procedure: Ordinary Legislative Procedure (OLP)
The Proposal (the so-called ‘PNR Directive’) is an important part of the EU’s anti-terrorism strategy, but it also raises key questions about the balance between liberty and security and about the creation of a ‘surveillance society’.
The Proposal has come after a decade of controversy over the use of PNR data for the purposes of fighting terrorism and organised or serious crime. As such the proposed Directive forms part of the Union’s security policy.
PNR data is the data given by passengers to airlines when they purchase a ticket in order for the airlines to deliver their services effectively. This data includes what is commonly known as ‘API data’ or Advance Passenger Information -passport information and the time and place of departure and arrival of the plane, plus billing information, updates on check-in status, seat number, itinerary and baggage information, etc. The EU has signed treaties with other countries such as the US and Canada on the transfer of PNR data for the fight against terrorism and is now seeking to harmonise PNR laws in order to help boost security by providing law enforcement authorities in the Member States with information to fight crime and terrorism by tracking known suspects and unearthing unknown suspects and in order to reduce the costs for airlines created by several national PNR regimes.
The Proposal raises a number of serious issues: should we be collecting so much data on people who are travelling; does this PNR system actually help fight crime; what is ‘serious crime’; how should the rights of privacy and data protection be protected? Participants will have the opportunity to debate a very recent Proposal for EU law which has a long history to research for party and country positions. Key issues include civil liberties and the fight against terrorism and serious crime. When discussing these issues participants will be able to discuss the possibility of going further than the Proposal (to cover road, rail or sea transport), to strengthen data protection rights, to define what serious crimes should be tackled and to ask whether such a system is necessary.
Proposal for a COUNCIL REGULATION establishing a European Agency for the Management of Operational Co-operation at the External Borders
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2003:0687:FIN:EN:PDF
Legislative procedure: Consultation Procedure
The Proposal aims at an integrated border management in order to ensure a high and uniform level of control of persons and surveillance at the external borders of the EU. The European area of freedom, security and justice would thus inevitably benefit from an increased co-ordination of the activities of the Member States with regard to control and surveillance at the external borders of the EU.
The Proposal establishes the European Agency for the Management of Operational Co-operation at the External Borders, which is a body of the EU with legal personality. Operational tasks at the external borders of the EU are entrusted to this new permanent structure at EU level, which shall exercise day-to-day management and coordination tasks and respond in time to emergency situations. The Agency shall also contribute to the implementation of the EU migration policies by organising return operations of illegally staying third-country nationals. Moreover, the Proposal provides for joint operations and pilot projects coordinated by the Agency, the training of border guards and the possibility to support Member States in circumstances requiring increased technical and operational assistance at the external borders of the EU.
The Proposal is related to two politically sensitive areas for the EU: defense and migration. For this very reason it raised a significant degree of controversy in EU institutions.
The Proposal is undoubtedly an exceptionally interesting text for political debate, as it may be considered to form part of a common defense policy decades after the failure of the European Defense Community. It is thus deeply associated with questions of European integration: how much integration does the EU need; is defense one of the fields where European integration should be achieved?
Moreover, the Proposal features an extremely up-to-date topic: migration and the Schengen aquis. According to the original text of the Proposal, the co-operation of expulsions of illegally-staying third-country nationals forms part of the mandate of the Agency; however, the European Parliament strongly opposed this power of the Agency and deleted all references to it.
Consequently, when debating the Proposal, participants will be able to discuss the potential of a common EU defense policy, the notion of the external borders of the EU, the necessity of an Agency such as the one presented by the Commission in the Proposal, the circumstances in which assistance may be provided by the Agency, the migration-related tasks of the Agency and also the controversial rules on its finances.