EU tells states: Don't break ranks on U.S. air safety
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union urged member states on Tuesday to refrain from signing national pacts with the United States on transatlantic flight security that could cut into EU competence.
The appeal came before a visit to the United States by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek during which officials are due to sign a deal on security arrangements that would end a U.S. visa requirement for Czech visitors.
Talks on air security have so far been mostly handled at an EU-U.S. level but -- to the annoyance of Brussels -- Washington has also initiated contacts with individual capitals on certain measures such as having armed air marshals on some flights.
"The view of the (EU) Presidency is that member states should refrain from taking any action that might prejudice applying a common approach," said a source dealing with the matter for Slovenia, holder of the presidency.
The source said implementing new U.S. requirements for any state wanting to take part in a U.S. visa waiver scheme "could touch on certain areas of either (EU) Community or EU competence or where international legislation or agreements already exist".
Asked specifically whether the EU believed the memorandum to be signed by Washington and Prague would cut into EU competence, the source said the presidency was still studying the text.
The Czech Deputy Prime Minister in charge of European Affairs, Alexandr Vondra, said that the Czechs had negotiated changes in the originally proposed memorandum and there should be no conflict within the EU.
"The concerns of some European representatives that we sign what the Americans present to us were clearly refuted, we negotiated over the text in a tough and thorough way for several weeks," he told Czech radio.
"Our model will basically conform to the EU's idea," he said.
EU diplomats say the United States is pushing countries to agree to new security measures as part of moves to revamp its program of visa waivers for passengers from certain states.
Most EU states are already part of the visa waiver program, and now eight mostly ex-communist countries that joined the European Union in 2004, along with older member Greece, are pressing Washington to include them too.
Vondra said he understood that those European countries already in the visa waiver scheme were not rushing to adopt any tougher rules demanded by the United States, but it was in the Czechs' interest to ease their visa regime with the United States.
A senior U.S. official said this month the United States could scrap visa requirements for Czechs, Greeks and Estonians by the end of this year.
(Additional reporting by Jan Lopatka in Prague)
(Reporting by Mark John; editing by David Brunnstrom)
