EU Expects Tough Talks on U.S. Screening

The European Union said Wednesday it expects tough negotiations with the United States on a new trans-Atlantic security agreement on airline passenger information.

An interim deal allowing the United States to use personal information on air passengers for anti-terror investigations expires in July.

"The negotiations will be extremely tortuous, because the U.S. is not interested in greater data protection," German Deputy Foreign Minister Guenther Gloser told the European Parliament, which has sought guarantees that privacy of passengers is protected. Germany holds the rotating presidency of the 27-nation bloc.

EU officials said Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini has asked the U.S. for assurances that data on Europeans handled through the U.S. Automated Targeting System, or ATS, conform with the interim agreement.

The system has drawn criticism since it became clear that ATS has been assessing millions of people - Americans and foreigners - since 2002. Some members of the U.S. Congress and privacy advocates have questioned the program's legality.

"The right to privacy for me is nonnegotiable. It has to be respected," Frattini told the parliamentarians.

After months of wrangling over privacy rights, Brussels and Washington struck a temporary deal last October that allows American law enforcement agencies to request access to passenger data on U.S.-bound flights. That deal replaced a 2004 air passenger privacy agreement that the EU's high court later voided for technical reasons.

Data about passengers flying from Europe to the United States - including passengers' names, addresses and credit card details - must be transferred to U.S. authorities within 15 minutes of a flight's departure for the United States.

Washington had warned that airlines failing to share passenger data faced fines of up to $6,000 per passenger and the loss of landing rights.

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