The Guardian

The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines. The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as “blackmail” and “troublesome”, and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington’s requirements.

According to a US document being circulated for signature in European capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said. And within months the US department of homeland security is to impose a new permit system for Europeans flying to the US, compelling all travellers to apply online for permission to enter the country before booking or buying a ticket, a procedure that will take several days. Washington is also asking European airlines to provide personal data on non-travellers – for example family members – who are allowed beyond departure barriers to help elderly, young or ill passengers to board aircraft flying to America, a demand the airlines reject as “absurd”. As part of a controversial passenger data exchange programme allegedly aimed at combating terrorism, the EU has for the past few months been supplying the American authorities with 19 items of information on every traveller flying from the EU to the US.



Brussels is pressing European governments not to sign the bilateral deals with the Americans to avoid weakening the EU bargaining position. To European ears, the US demands sound draconian. “This would oblige the European countries to allow US air marshals on US flights. It’s controversial and difficult,” an EU official said. At the moment the use of air marshals is discretionary for European states and airlines. The US Transport Security Administration has also asked the European airlines to supply personal data on “certain non-travelling members of the public requesting access to areas beyond the screening checkpoint”.

The AEA said this was “absurd” because the airlines neither obtain nor can obtain such information. The request was “fully unjustified”.