Raad Justitie en Binnenlandse Zaken (JBZ) wil introductie bodyscanners versnellen (en)
"Family picture" of the the informal JHA meeting.EFE
The ministers for home affairs of the EU have asked the European Commission (EC) today to speed up the report on new technologies, such as body scanners, that the whole of the EU may adopt with the aim of guaranteeing safety particularly in air transport.
This was the main conclusion of the session of the ministers for home affairs of the EU at the start of the Informal Council on Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) in Toledo, chaired by Spain, and which included the presence of the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano.
During the course of the meeting, a joint EU-United States declaration was also signed to strengthen international air safety measures and standards and to open a “global dialogue for the safety of international travel”.
“We are going to make a greater effort, and work together tirelessly and with more cooperation, as the best guarantee for preventing terrorist attacks”, promised the Spanish Minister for Home Affairs, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, in the press conference after the meeting.
In Napolitano's opinion, “Al-Qaeda is devoting its best minds to thinking about how to carry out terrorist attacks and we must work to prevent it as best as we can”.
“It is a challenge that affects everybody and which we must all face together”, she said before explaining that the United States is also ready “not only to collaborate with the EU but also to organise regional meetings” in places like Africa or with multilateral organisations such as the UN.
In the same press conference, the Vice-president of the European Commission and the head of security, Jacques Barrot i, confirmed that the Community Executive “is going to speed up its report on technologies and body scanners” and restart the project to create a common passenger name record (PNR) for Europe with “the urgency the ministers have undertaken to back this project”.
The three politicians highlighted the contradiction in the exchange of passenger data with the United States but not between European States, “as if a terrorist cannot catch a plane in Heathrow to travel to Madrid”, said Rubalcaba.
As for the use of body scanners in airports, Barrot stressed that the Commission is preparing a report on the effectiveness of this technology, its possible health affects and compatibility with the right to privacy.
This matter, Pérez Rubalcaba said, has not been dealt with in today's meeting, as it is the responsibility of the ministers of development.
However, he pointed out that there are other technologies “as or more useful” in the fight against terrorism, such as those that detect the remains of explosives or determine the composition of metals and liquids.
“A good PNR system may be, at least, as efficient” as the scanners, Barrot pointed out.
For Napolitano, the use of scanners “is not the deciding factor nor essential for guaranteeing safety”, although the USA considers them as useful. It already has 40 up and running and plans to put 450 more in operation during this year.