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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/24/brussels-bombings-eu-ministers-meet-as-border-controls-criticised
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Brussels bombings: EU ministers to meet | Brussels bombings: EU ministers to meet |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| European justice and home affairs ministers will hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Thursday to show solidarity with Belgium, 48 hours after two terrorist attacks hit the capital of the EU. | European justice and home affairs ministers will hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Thursday to show solidarity with Belgium, 48 hours after two terrorist attacks hit the capital of the EU. |
| Related: Brussels attacks: EU security ministers hold emergency terror talks – live | Related: Brussels attacks: EU security ministers hold emergency terror talks – live |
| No decisions are expected from the two-hour meeting, but ministers will call on the European parliament “as a matter of urgency” to adopt an agreement on security forces’ use of airport passenger data, overriding objections from privacy campaigners. | No decisions are expected from the two-hour meeting, but ministers will call on the European parliament “as a matter of urgency” to adopt an agreement on security forces’ use of airport passenger data, overriding objections from privacy campaigners. |
| The passenger name record database has become a totemic issue in the debate over security versus liberty, since a pan-European data collection system was first proposed in 2011. Although EU governments and MEPs reached a compromise deal last December after five years of bitter dispute, the parliament has yet to vote on the draft law. | The passenger name record database has become a totemic issue in the debate over security versus liberty, since a pan-European data collection system was first proposed in 2011. Although EU governments and MEPs reached a compromise deal last December after five years of bitter dispute, the parliament has yet to vote on the draft law. |
| The PNR scheme would give security services across the EU access to a database with 42 separate pieces of air-passenger information, including name, home address, itinerary, baggage, how they paid for their ticket, where they sat on the plane and whether they requested halal food. Some countries, including the UK, already collect such data, but the absence of a common European scheme is seen as a weak link in the continent’s counter-terrorism action. | The PNR scheme would give security services across the EU access to a database with 42 separate pieces of air-passenger information, including name, home address, itinerary, baggage, how they paid for their ticket, where they sat on the plane and whether they requested halal food. Some countries, including the UK, already collect such data, but the absence of a common European scheme is seen as a weak link in the continent’s counter-terrorism action. |
| Under last year’s draft agreement, reached after the Paris attacks, European security services would have access to the PNR database for five years: access would be easiest for the first six months and subject to stricter control over the following four-and-a-half years. | Under last year’s draft agreement, reached after the Paris attacks, European security services would have access to the PNR database for five years: access would be easiest for the first six months and subject to stricter control over the following four-and-a-half years. |
| The French government has criticised MEPs for delays in adopting the proposal. “It is irresponsible of the European parliament to delay the vote on the adoption of PNR,” the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said on Tuesday. | |
| MEPs who oppose the scheme have argued that data collection is excessive and would not have prevented terrorist attacks, such as the atrocities in Paris. The European parliament could vote on the scheme in April, but no date has been confirmed, one parliament source said. MEPs would like to tie the PNR decision to another vote on data protection measures, which could cause delays. | |
| The ministerial meeting comes one day after European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, called for “a security union” to face the threat of terrorism. Last April the EU executive published a five-year security plan, a range of measures from improving intelligence-sharing in the 26-country passport free Schengen zone, working with internet companies to take extremist material off the internet and sending European counter-terrorism experts to EU embassies in the Middle East. | |
| The head of the EU police agency Europol, Rob Wainwright, is due to attend Thursday’s meeting in Brussels. Earlier, he warned that the Brussels attacks showed that the network of 5,000 terrorist suspects was more dangerous than previously thought. “We are concerned about the extent to which we are now uncovering a more widespread network than was first feared,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. |