EU, US miss deadline on passenger data-sharing deal

Dutch Liberal Sophia in 't Veld (ALDE), author of a draft recommendation to the Council on a negotiation strategy for a passenger data agreement with the US, told EurActiv the reintroduction of the current agreement under a new legal basis was the "least bad option". "We were never happy with the agreement...but a bad agreement is still better than no agreement," she said, pointing out that "now, we are in a situation were EU citizens are completely unprotected." She said it was high time the EU stopped implementing US data-hungry laws, which go against the European principles of data protection and privacy, be it in relation to passenger, telecoms or bank data.

Commission Spokesman Jonathan Todd  said: "We will be discussing this at the highest political levels to see how we can take if forward. There is an imperative to sort it out sooner rather than later." 

US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he remained "confident we can move forward to a mutually acceptable agreement". He insisted that "the talks did not break down. Their delegation had to go home and that's fine." 

He added that he was sure that the US would continue to receive data from European airlines and that the airlines would not be penalised by their home governments. “We expect that planes will continue to fly uninterrupted and our national security will not be impeded." 

Speaking to EurActiv, Françoise Humbert, spokeswoman for the Association of European Airlines, said that, although airlines were worried about the lack of agreement, because it could put airlines in "an impossible situation" where they would have to choose which rules to break, it now seemed that "airlines would be able to benefit from a 'tolerance period' until a new agreement is concluded". 

She said airlines were “not exactly relaxed or happy about it” but that, so far, flights seemed to be taking off on time, with no major disruptions.