U.S. authorities will be able to keep trawling through personal data on passengers flying from Europe, even though the European Union's highest court found problems Tuesday with the accord that made airlines share the information.
The court ruling requires EU and U.S. officials to change the legal foundation of the deal before the end of September, but it has no immediate effect on a program that lets U.S. officials see dozens of pieces of information about each passenger - including name, address and credit card details.
The judges' ruling did not address whether the 2004 data agreement violated privacy laws, a complaint that spurred strong opposition from many European lawmakers and citizens' rights groups.
EU, U.S. and airline officials said they were all but certain the deal could be reworked by the court-imposed Sept. 30 deadline.
"I am confident that we will find a solution that will keep the data flowing and the planes flying," said Stewart Baker, an assistant secretary of state at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The agreement gives U.S. authorities the right to 34 pieces of information about each passenger, data sent 15 minutes before departure for the United States.
In its ruling on a complaint filed by the European Parliament, the European Court of Justice considered only the legal basis of the pact, and concluded the agreement was illegally adopted.
The European Commission, which signed the agreement, had argued it could be based on rules used for transferring data between businesses, because the information was collected by airlines.
The court said it was wrong to assume that data privacy laws governed the transfer of information in this instance, where the information ended up in the hands of law enforcement.
The European Parliament had asked the court to annul the deal. Washington warned that airlines faced fines of up to $6,000 per passenger, and the loss of landing rights, if the information was not provided.
"We need continuity," Franco Frattini, a top European Commission security official, said Tuesday during a televised discussion among EU and U.S. anti-terrorism officials and experts.
Airline representatives expressed confidence that changes could be made without jeopardizing the substance of the agreement.
"It does not seem to alter the reality of the situation to any major extent," said David Henderson, a spokesman for the Association of European Airlines, which represents carriers such as British Airways, Air France and Lufthansa. "It's really a problem for the lawyers."
During negotiations leading up to the 2004 accord, the EU won some concessions from the U.S., such as shortening the time the information is stored, to a maximum 3 1/2 years, and deleting sensitive data such as meal preference, which could indicate a passenger's religion or ethnicity.
EU and U.S. officials agreed that the data could only be used to fight terrorism and other serious crimes, including organized crime. The U.S. also agreed that the information would be shared with other countries only on a restricted basis.
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