EC wil gemeenschappelijk EU-aanpak Amerikaanse veiligheidseisen (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission i has begun to muscle in on a process in which EU member states bilaterally sign up to new US travel security demands, hoping to achieve a unified approach to the controversial issue.
The Czech Republic, which is hoping to secure visa-free travel to the US, is expected to be the first EU country to sign up to Washington's latest demands, when the country's prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, visits Washington next week.
But EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini i is seeking to head off this piecemeal approach to security issues among the 27 member states.
On Monday evening (18 February), Mr Frattini met Czech deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra to discuss the US-Czech travel security document, which Washington says will help the authorities keep track of who wants to enter US territory.
The wish-list includes sky marshals aboard transatlantic flights operated by the US airlines, an electronic travel authorisation system, additional data on air passengers and on travel documents as well as repatriation agreements.
According to a commission spokesperson, experts from Brussels and Prague are to meet this week to iron out any differences between the two sides over the US-Czech memorandum. "It should respect the EU's law and competencies", said the spokesperson.
Following these talks, Mr Frattini is set to table his own version of a so-called memorandum of understanding between the United States and the European Union as a whole.
The Czech-US deal could serve as the basis for such a proposal, the commission spokesperson said.
The EU's executive body has strongly criticised the bilateral negotiations between Washington and individual EU capitals from both, political and legal point of view.
On one hand, it considers the latest US security demands - leaked to a British newspaper last week - to be "unacceptable" and going "too far".
At the same time, it says new EU states are both undermining the union's political strength as a 27-nation bloc and not respecting its power to negotiate certain accords on behalf of national governments.
According to the commission, governments are free to strike a bilateral deal on in-flight security officers, but cannot do so when it comes to visa policy, passenger name records, security of travel documents or readmission agreements.
But the Czech Republic is maintaining its bilateral negotiations on the issue.
Mr Vondra said his country will go ahead with the signing of the document, which is seen there as a safe way to secure visa-free travel to the US.
"To wait and do nothing would only repeat the policy of the past few years", he said after Monday's talks with commissioner Frattini, the Czech news agency reports.
He added, however, that Prague is ready to debate a common EU position on the issue, which is set to dominate a meeting of home affairs ministers next week as well as an EU-US meeting in March.