March 16, 2003	Sunday	Muharram 12, 1424

PARIS, March 15: The European Parliament is up in arms over a controversial and confidential agreement — a “joint declaration” as it is referred to by European authorities — entered into on March 4 between the European Commission and the US government.

According to the arrangement, the United States customs service is now being given direct access to the computerized reservation data banks of all European airlines and travel agencies. This means that not only can US authorities know at an instant’s notice who will be taking a given flight into New York or Washington, they can also decipher the computerized data to gather other personal information about visitors that could indicate their religious affiliation, and other personal details.

“We should have been consulted in the matter,” says Jorge Hernandez Mollar, president of the European Parliament’s commission on liberties, who has proposed that the deputies opposed like him to the arrangement vote on a resolution that the accord be suspended until it is properly studied and voted upon by the Parliament.

“It’s just not in conformity to European law,” adds another deputy, Katalijne Buitenweg, a Dutch ecologist MP, who explains that “we can in no way authorize any accord which results in the communication of personal information to third parties.”