Le Parlement adopte un rapport accablant sur la CIA

"This is a report that doesn't allow anyone to look the other way. We must be vigilant that what has been happening in the past five years may never happen again," said Italian Socialist Giovanni Fava, who drafted the document. Fava added during the parliamentary debate that the related investigation, over a year, had uncovered much new evidence.

Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said that the Commission "would act on the truth, even if it were uncomfortable or unpalatable", but urged the relaunching of the Euro-Atlantic relationship and said that Europe must continue to work with the US.

EPP-ED group spokesman Jas Gawronski MEP said: "The temporary committee has found precious little evidence to back the long list of allegations and suppositions about wrongdoing by member states, which have been adopted as hard facts in today's report. However, the wording of the report strongly implies that countries in Europe have been massively involved in extraordinary rendition activities and illegal detention. That is unfortunately not a faithful interpretation of facts. Amendments by the EPP-ED Group to balance the wording of the resolution have been rejected. We therefore had no alternative to voting against the report."

MEP Ignasi Guardans, Spanish CiU member and ALDE co-ordinator on the temporary committee, said: "What is at stake here is the very credibility of the Union. It is a political message that we are addressing to the member states that we do not accept that you use, in our name, the methods of a dirty war in the fight against terrorism."

UK Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford, vice-president of the temporary committee, argued that "to suggest that this report is anti-American is absurd". Repeating the comments of US Democratic senator Barak Obama , she added that "what the United States needs is not to be feared but to be respected".

"The United States must demonstrate that it respects the values of democracy and rule of law, not just in preaching such values while the EU should be its main ally in defending and promoting them."

German Green MEP and vice-chairman of the CIA committee, Cem Özdemir, said: "Despite the efforts of some within this house to muffle the work of the EP-CIA inquiry, the adoption of this report sends a strong message that EU governments must stop brushing the CIA abuses within their jurisdictions under the table. Over the past year, the EP inquiry has clearly demonstrated that the CIA both abducted and transported civilians in EU countries, a practice that many EU governments and key officials in the EU institutions were aware of. 

"While some member states have begun to properly investigate these illegal activities by the CIA, many governments are still sticking their heads in the sand and hoping that the problem will simply go away if they ignore it...if certain member states fail to act on the clear evidence of human rights violations unearthed by the EP CIA inquiry it is natural that serious questions be asked about their compliance with these core values on which EU membership is based."

Charles Tannock MEP, UK Conservative foreign affairs spokesman, referring to the fact that Labour MEPs largely voted against the UK's alliance with USA in the war on terror, said: "Labour today voted against Blair, the USA and NATO and in favour of more EU powers over security and counter-terrorism. I particularly condemn the requirement on the British government to extend consular protection to former UK residents who had not bothered to become citizens, but chosen instead to travel to dangerous parts of the world. This is contrary to all the traditional obligations and rights of citizenship of our member states."

Dutch Green MEP and group co-ordinator on the committee Kathalijne Buitenweg said: "The final report of the CIA committee must not be the end of the Parliament's involvement in this issue. The ball is now in the court of the Member States but the EP must be vigilant and ensure that its recommendations are acted on. We need to assess the follow-up of the CIA inquiry.

Along similar lines, the European Parliament also adopted a resolution demanding more transparency on the conditions for financial data-sharing with the US authorities via the SWIFT system (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) as well as a greater involvement of Parliament in the negotiation of the definitive agreement between Brussels and Washington on airline passenger- name records. 

Netherlands D66 MEP Sophie In't Veld, rapporteur on the issue in Parliament, welcomed the vote's result: "The unlimited and uncontrolled manner in which governments now treat our privacy does not make us safer, but severely violates our civil rights. I wonder whether people will continue to react so laconically if it was not the Americans but Russia or China who had our personal data?"

Human rights campaigning group Amnesty International welcomed the vote, but urged member states to carry out independent investigations.