Paris – Europe’s highest court on Tuesday overturned a 2-year-old anti-terrorism agreement under which European airlines provide U.S. law enforcement agencies with detailed information about passengers traveling to the United States. The agreement was improperly crafted, the court ruled.
The information-sharing, which privacy advocates have criticized, can continue until Sept. 30 to give officials on both sides of the Atlantic time to fashion a solution, according to the ruling by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
U.S. government officials said they did not believe the decision would nullify the agreement in the long term.
“The content of the agreement was not what the court found issue with,” said Jarrod Agen, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Instead, he said, the court found issue “with the process of how the agreement was signed.”
“There should be enough time to put together a new legal framework that will support the essence of the agreement,” said Lufthansa spokesman Tom Tripp.
The agreement requires European airlines to give the United States electronic access to the “passenger name record,” a computerized form that includes 34 fields, some of which are not necessarily filled out, including the passenger’s name, address and credit-card information. U.S. officials said the information was needed to more thoroughly screen arrivals to the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The airlines are required to forward information about all of their passengers within 15 minutes of a plane’s takeoff. In recent years, several planes from Europe have been turned back in midflight or forced to land short of their destination to give U.S. officials more time to check out questionable passengers.
U.S., European and airline officials said the ruling was not a surprise and pledged to work together to find a way to continue to satisfy U.S. needs for information.
