Dave, Transatlantic news again on passenger name records. Less than four hours ago [UTC 10:30] a sweeping majority of European members of parliament strongly condemned the new transatlantic treaty the EU council is to sign with the DHS. Originally there were two resolutions: A joint resolution of the liberal, socialdemocrat, green and leftist fractions in the EU parliament, highly critical of the treaty. The conservatives had a resolution of their own, a pretty weak one, supported only by the fraction UEN [right wing catholics, populists, ex-faschists etc. ] Shortly before the vote the conservatives withdrew their resolution and decided to vote with the majority. Even the "vote by name" procedure was dropped, close to 90 percent of the MEPs raised their hands in consent - to thrash EU Commissioner Franco Frattini who is to close that deal with the DHS. According to EU rules the parliament is in this case only being consulted because the Council of [national] Ministers decides on foreign and security policy. Such a large majority in parliament - a pretty rare case - against an undertaking of the EU Commission/Council usually _never_ goes unnoticed by the latter. MEPs of all major parties - from right to left - I talked to all expressed more or less the same: "enough is enough." Enough from what? "Unilateralism" greetz from Vienna Erich -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- Joint resolution wind up the debate on statements by the Commission pursuant to Rule 103(2) of the Rules of Procedure, by Sophia in 't Veld on behalf of the ALDE Group Martine Roure and Stavros Lambrinidis on behalf of the PSE Group SylviaYvonne Kaufmann and Giusto Catania on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group Kathalijne Buitenweg and Eva Lichtenberger on behalf of the Green/ALE Group On the PNR agreement with the United States http://quintessenz.org/d/000100003894 PNR Treaty in full text http://quintessenz.org/d/000100003891 Political parties in the EU parliament an overview http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/ expert.do;jsessionid=7F9D0292488A43F7778205897F5F47D7.node2?language=EN http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/expert.do?language=DE Details and Analysis on the parliament's decision [German] http://futurezone.orf.at/it/stories/206870/ -- pgp-Key http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xE386BAA1 -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE