EU plays down US travel security move
RENATA GOLDIROVA
06.06.2008 @ 09:39 CET
EUOBSERVER / LUXEMBOURG - Shortly after the United States announced it would further tighten its border security and electronically collect data on all European travellers, the EU has played down the scale of the move.
"I don't believe that it is a new form of visa," Slovenian interior minister Dragutin Mate, speaking on behalf of his country's EU presidency, said on Thursday (5 June). He added that an online registration system would ask for "identical data" as is currently required when filling out the I-94 immigration form on board.
Electronic travel authorisation will be mandatory from January next year (Photo: European Commission)
The main difference is that Washington will receive the information in advance, while people frequently travelling across the Atlantic will provide it only once every two years, Mr Mate stressed.
Earlier this week (3 June), US homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff announced the creation of an Electronic System of Travel Authorisation, known as ESTA.
The system will collect data on passengers no later than 72 hours ahead of their departure, with the subsequent authorisation for travel being valid for multiple entries over a two-year period.
The procedure will become mandatory for all Europeans, who currently enjoy a visa-free regime with Washington, from January next year.
The European Commission is yet to establish whether ESTA amounts to visa policy or not, as it has clashed with some EU capitals over the issue.
The Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta and Slovakia - who all entered bilateral talks on US-proposed travel security measures in return for visa-free travel - insist that it is not.
Visa policy falls under the EU competencies and so negotiations would have to be co-ordinated by the commission.
EU home affairs commissioner Jacques Barrot confirmed on Thursday (5 June) that ESTA "is confined just to the data requested in the white form".
However, he added: "I did ask Mr Chertoff to give me any further information so we can understand in its entirety how the system will work and how the US will use it."
According to Slovenian minister Dragutin Mate, some governments have expressed reservations about providing information on health, when asked whether they have a "communicable disease".
"I personally don't have problems with that. Some countries have some questions about that - they think that is very personal and sensitive data," Mr Mate said.