EU REACTION TO VWP BIOMETRIC REQUIREMENTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRUSSELS 002312

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR CA, EUR/ERA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/15/2015
TAGS: CPAS CVIS EUN USEU BRUSSELS
SUBJECT: EU REACTION TO VWP BIOMETRIC REQUIREMENTS

REF: STATE 111324

Classified By: PRMOFF MARC J. MEZNAR. REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).


1. (U) Per reftel, PRMOff met with senior officials of the
European Commission (EC) and Luxembourg Presidency on June 15
(at 4:30 p.m.) to review biometric passport requirements for
VWP countries.


2. (U) EC participants from the Directorate General for
Justice, Freedom and Security included: Jean-Louis de
Brouwer, Director for Borders and Visas; Lotte Knudsen, Head
of Unit for External Relations; Frank Paul, Head of Unit for
Large Scale Information Technology Systems; Silvia Kolligs,
Senior Advisor for Biometrics; and Heike Buss, USA Desk.
Roland Genson, Counselor for Justice and Home Affairs Issues,
represented the Luxembourg Presidency of the European Council.


3. (C) Overall, de Brouwer expressed relief that a solution
had been found in advance of the U.S.-EU Summit that ensured
all current countries would remain on the VWP come October
26, 2005. He acknowledged that significant numbers of French
and Italian citizens would be inconvenienced by the visa
requirement because their governments will not be able to
meet Level I certification by October 26, 2005. According to
de Brouwer, Italy has informed the EC that it will begin
issuing Level II compliant passports in early 2006. However,
France has not responded to an EC inquiry regarding the
current status of its biometric passport. De Brouwer said
that France most probably would concentrate its efforts on
meeting Level II requirements instead of working to implement
photo-digitized passports.


4. (C) Regarding the new reporting requirements for lost and
stolen passports, de Brouwer inquired whether the U.S. was
prepared to provide the same data on a reciprocal basis.
PRMOff noted that in the past the EC has not been willing to
accept personal data because the parameters of the Schengen
Information System (SIS) precluded entering data on foreign
documents. Nonetheless, de Brouwer said the principle of
reciprocity was important and that future changes to the SIS
might allow for this. He stressed that he was only
inquiring; PRMOff said he would relay the question to
Washington. Other participants raised questions about how
this information needed to be communicated to DHS and whether
the possibility might exist for DHS to download the data
systematically from the Interpol database.


5. (C) Regarding passport readers and other technical issues,
Paul welcomed the convening of a meeting this summer. He
stressed the importance of all countries working together
towards the goal of global interoperability. He underscored
a preference for smart readers that were able to read chips
without regard to their position in the passport booklet. He
noted that the EC was not specifying the location for chips
and that Member States were proceeding with a variety of
passport formats (some with chips in the cover and others
with chips embedded in interior pages). Paul is scheduled to
begin a several week international visitor program to the
U.S. on or about July 14 and hopes to further discuss these
issues with appropriate interlocutors.


6. (U) The EC looks forward to written confirmation of the
details provided in the June 15 briefing session provided by
PRMOff.

SCHNABEL
.