MEPs reject new vote on EU-US air data deal

MEPs have thrown out last minute attempts by national governments to make them back EU-US air data transfers.

Diplomats were demanding that parliament use an “urgency procedure” to force a crunch vote on a controversial Trans-Atlantic anti-terror agreement.

This would have annulled the parliament’s bid to take the case to the European Court of Justice for a legal ruling on whether it met EU Treaty obligations on data protection and on the procedure used to push it through.

But the Council’s attempts to strategically out-manoeuvre the parliament faltered when MEPs voted 343 to 301, with 18 abstentions, against accepting the urgency request.

“The European Parliament has voted to reject a procedural ploy by Council to force our hand on the transfer of air passenger data,” said Dutch Liberal Johanna Boogerd-Quaak, the MEP who drafted the parliament’s opinion.

“This means that we have now voted five times to speak out against this agreement with the US. I hope the Council now understands that no means no.”

EU and national officials had argued that two previous votes by MEPs failed to back or sack handovers of air passenger data to US security agencies.

The EU-US agreement is backed by Europe's capitals, brokered by the European Commission and regarded as "vital" in Washington.

March 31 and April 21 decisions were taken  by a narrow margin in the parliament to seek a legal challenge amid MEP anger and privacy concerns at the EU-US deal.

Parliament has refused - twice - to either endorse or reject the agreement until a European Court of Justice ruling.

Today’s decision by MEPs has cleared the way for the ruling to go ahead as planned.

It marked the first vote by the newly enlarged parliament, and 788 MEPs were allowed to participate.

The result quelled fears that unelected MEPs from new EU countries could knuckle under to government pressure and take a pro-Washington line.

• Previous article
• Next article