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 .