Transcript by Federal News Service, Washington, DC

ANGELOS PANGRATIS [Deputy Head of Delegation, Washington]: Maybe we can start, if the Vice President agrees.

FRANCO FRATTINI: Of course.

MR. PANGRATIS: As a word of welcome from my side on behalf of the Delegation, the Deputy Head of the Delegation here. My name is Pangratis. I’m new in town and I don’t know most of you but I’m sure we will have several opportunities to meet again.

It’s a great honor to receive the Vice President of the [European] Commission, Franco Frattini. As you know, the Vice President is responsible for Freedom, Justice and Security in the EU Commission, which he joined in November 2004. Before that he was the Foreign Affairs Minister of Italy.

It’s the first visit of the Vice President in his capacity in Washington. He will participate in the EU Ministerial Troika, together with the [EU] UK [Presidency] Home Affairs Minister, Charles Clarke and the Austrian Justice and Interior Ministers, Karin Gastinger and Liese Prokop. This is the second EU-US Troika on those issues. There are meetings also on the Hill, and there will be another fresh opportunity at 1:15 after this Troika meeting together with the US counterparts.

I think we will make this press conference in a very simple and open way. The Vice President will give a small, short statement and then you can ask questions. Please, when you ask your question, introduce yourself so that we get to know each other. Thank you very much.

Vice President, please.

MR. FRATTINI: Thank you. Thank you, very much. First of all, I intend to convey a political message. The political message is that the Euro-Atlantic alliance remains the pillar for networking security against the network of terror. That’s why it’s so important not only to confirm but also to strengthen the United States’ cooperation. Of course, European Member States stand united in preventing, fighting terror and serious crime. But it is not enough, as you know very well, because now terror is a globalized threat. We should respond by networking the security and the protection of fundamental rights. Because, if I talk about security, security of course is the precondition to enjoy the other fundamental rights. Because if I’m not secure to go by the subway or by bus, I’m not free. That’s the political message.

We will talk about several items and issues like the comprehensive strategy to prevent and fight all the aspects of terrorism, including financing terrorism. I will meet with the responsible [parties] in the [US Department of the] Treasury for countermeasures on financing terrorism. And of course I will be ready to guarantee the full cooperation of the European Union Member States and of the Commission in strengthening our policy about the countermeasures on financing terrorism, including the new approach towards the nonprofit sector. We are stimulating NGOs to help us in order to build a European code of conduct in order to prevent misusing of charities by suspect organizations.

We will talk about another important issue: that is, security of the travel documents. And of course we will talk about biometrics identifiers and this waiver problem. My demand will be, of course not overnight, to extend the visa-waiver program to all new Member States of Europe, indeed a spirit of reciprocity because, as you know very well, American cities enjoy exemption of these in all Member States of Europe.

We are talking about it, and I note a spirit of full cooperation from the US side. I’ve already met both Minister Chertoff – Secretary Chertoff – and the Attorney General. And now we will confirm our common commitment to move ahead in the field of extending these, I may call, secure travel environment within which there will be a possibility of free movement of people and goods, and outside which there will be full control. Because our intention is to create a common, secure environment – Euro-Atlantic environment – to secure travel, to secure transports and so on.

Of course we will talk about another very important political challenge, if I may say. The political challenge is to keep a balanced approach between more security, strengthened security, and protecting fundamental rights of people. We cannot reduce the level of protection and promotion of basic rights of people because there is the terrorist threat. That is a very difficult challenge, as you can imagine, but for example, we are working hard in this field. I just presented, two days ago, a proposal – legislative proposal, Commissioners approved, regarding the protection of personal data in the police cooperation field. We call it the third pillar.

It is, for the first time, a comprehensive proposal dealing with protection of data in a very sensitive area like the police cooperation. That’s why I intend to go – I intend – I believe that security and protection of rights go hand in hand. There is no contradiction. We had presented a data retention initiative a few weeks ago, and now we are presenting a data protection initiative, and we intend to move in parallel. I will present the two initiatives to the Council of Interior and Justice Ministers next week, exactly because, in my view, we need a balanced approach.

Finally, we will deal with another important, again, political challenge: prevention and dialogue with different religions and cultures. We will meet I think this afternoon with the Muslim communities, living – representatives of Muslim communities living here in the United States in order to exchange our points of view regarding inter-cultural, inter-religious dialogue. Inter-religious dialogue is one of the preconditions to eradicate violence and violent radicalization. Also on that, I just presented a Communication of the Commission in order to explore the profound roots of violence and the reasons of the growing recruitment of terrorists. And that’s why I attach great importance to the permanent dialogue between different religions and cultures, in Europe of course but also between Europe and the United States. Because dialogue is one of the elements of the integration policy. We cannot manage, for example, the immigration issue without an integration policy. We cannot eradicate violence without getting involved in all the communities representing different cultures and religions.

So, in short, these are the main problems to be addressed in this meeting, this Troika meeting. I will have also, tomorrow morning, the opportunity to meet bilaterally the President of the World Bank. I will meet President Wolfowitz because I intend to present to him a recently approved initiative by the Commission regarding relations between migration policy and development: in brief, how best we can use remittances of migrants to improve development in the origin countries. That is a new challenge for Europe because, as you know very well, we have now a lot of migrants. They receive salaries but we don’t have, not yet, a European policy to channel remittances on a voluntary basis, of course, towards origin countries in order to promote small and medium enterprises, in order to promote micro-credits. And I think that the World Bank could be interested in working together with Europe, with the European Commission, in order to elaborate and launch joint problem. That is a new way, a new approach towards economic migration.

I’ll stop here and – of course.

MR. PANGRATIS: Thank you, Vice President. Just to say that the Vice President is accompanied by Jonathan Faull, who is the Director-General for Freedom, Justice and Security.

Your questions, please. Yes, young lady.

Q: I’m Leslie Miller with Associated Press. I wonder if you could provide a couple of specifics on this proposal for data protection.

MR. FRATTINI: Well, yes. We approved a proposal for a framework decision, a legislative proposal dealing with the data protection in the field of cooperation among police authorities. We will clarify that only for specific purposes and only under full control of legitimate authorities, data – personal data can be treated. That’s why I’ve proposed to move in parallel with data retention, because you know very well [the] data retention initiative is an extremely sensitive one. And so I believe that only after clarifying purposes and authorities – legitimate authorities – we can reassure citizens about avoiding misuse of their personal data, because people having nothing to hide, nothing to fear, should be reassured.

And this initiative can reassure people because there will be a clear guarantee that even within the framework of police cooperation, only a judge, only a prosecutor, only a legitimate authority will access data, personal data, databases, because for example, we intend to strengthen the exchange of information among law enforcement authorities. I will present – again, in parallel – next week another proposal based on the so-called principle of availability, meaning that if a law enforcement authority in one Member State needs to be – information – needs to have information about a person in another Member State, there will be the possibility of direct access to data without filters that will be, if I can say, a revolution because by the end of 2007 – that is our intention – there will be a common European ground for exchange of information.

To do that we need to reassure people, bone fide people, about averting misusing their personal data. And that’s why, again, data retention, data protection, and principle of availability will be the three pillars of a strategy, strengthening exchanges of information, reassuring people about avoiding misusing their personal data and allowing legitimate authorities to retain data, to preserve data that are needed for the investigation. So I see these three initiatives as three elements of the same strategy.

MR. PANGRATIS: Please.

Q: I wanted to ask you how much progress has been made on Eurojust and Europol and the efforts to get all of the countries sort of on the same page in terms of laws regarding counter-terrorism and exchange of information. I noticed in – you were talking about how the Member States need to do more to exchange operational intelligence and policy – operational intelligence and policy laws. Can you go into what some of the obstacles are there? And with the broader community – I notice you also mentioned cooperating with the Mediterranean countries as well.

MR. FRATTINI: Well, my intention is exactly to strengthen Europol’s and Eurojust’s role. They are playing already a positive role, just to mention a very important investigation led by Europol a few months ago and a few weeks ago, investigation over pedophilia cases that led to more than 152 people arrested in 13 Member States of Europe under the leadership of Europol. So Europol is starting functioning quite well.

We are insisting – we are urging Member States to cooperate more and more, and we are urging also international partners to cooperate, like United States. I very much appreciate the establishment of a liaison officer here in Washington and in The Hague, Europol and US authorities. For example, the same applies to Russian authorities that sent a liaison officer to The Hague to cooperate closely with Europol.

I don’t see obstacles, I see just the normal need of changing mentality; that is, mentality of jealously is normal because we touch upon one of the most sensitive national competencies and responsibilities. But Member States now understood that regarding trans-border crime – terrorism, organized crime – only thanks to close cooperation we can succeed. And Europol is exactly an instrument put at disposal of Member States, national and law enforcement authorities.

The same as for Eurojust. There is an ongoing discussion, as you probably know, about also the future role of Eurojust. Some would like to transform Eurojust into a European public prosecutor. Some have still reluctance about it. But Eurojust is an instrument to improve mutual trust among judicial and investigation authorities, and it is functioning quite well.

So I see a possible better future, and I will talk about Europol’s and Eurojust’s roles also with US authorities. For example, a quite successful experience is the cooperation between Europol and Interpol about using the databases of Interpol and Europol in exchange.

Q: By the way, I forget to introduce myself. I’m Josh Meyer from the LA Times. Thank you.

MR. PANGRATIS: Thank you. Please.

Q: (Off mike.) I have two questions. First question: Do you expect today real, concrete progress on the question of visas or at least an engagement of future progress from American side?

And the second question: Do you consider that today the United States respects the balance between measures to ensure security and measures to ensure personal freedom?

MR. FRATTINI: Well, the first question, I expect the confirmation of the US commitment towards better and positive environment of cooperation with European Union. Because let me tell you that the last technical meeting about – I just mentioned the PNR [Passenger Name Record] review process was extremely successful because our experts, our services saw concretely on the ground in the building of the security authorities of the United States what kind of treatment is for personal data of passengers. For example, we received the confirmation about the band of transmitting to third countries national data – personal data of European passengers, and that was a very important confirmation. I had expected this confirmation and we were well received.

This is just an example, to say that I have positive expectations about the positive atmosphere. We will propose – I will propose some concrete ideas. I cannot anticipate, I’m sorry, to you now before talking with the Secretary Chertoff and the Attorney General, but I think at a press conference later we will indicate what kind of concrete proposals I will put on the table.

One strong point is and will be our expectation – I repeat, not overnight – to have extended the visa waiver program to all 25 Member States. I understand there are problems but all Member States – all new Member States are making very huge efforts to meet the security requirements for documents, but it seems to me extremely important, the positive attitude showed by the American security administration on that.

Regarding the second question, the balance, well, I think a year ago Europe had requested to the American Administration to establish a privacy protection supervisor, and they did – and they did it. And that is an important element because our concern about the right balance had an appropriate answer. Of course, one element of our talks will be exactly that. I will present my proposal on data protection; they have a different system because, as you know, their system is based on data preservation system so that they don’t retain, as we want to do, but they preserve each and every datum where there is a need from investigational authority or prosecutor or a judge.

It is a different system, but the point is that we should keep a comparable system of guarantees. When the answer was I can reassure you your passengers’ data are not transferred to third countries, that is a positive element, as you can understand, just to make an example.

Q: If I can just follow up, I assume when you said that PNR was transferred to third countries that meant Canada and Mexico, but were you unhappy about that or – I mean, I’m a little unclear about where you stand on whether that data should be transmitted.

JONATHAN FAULL: I think it’s a misunderstanding.

MR. FRATTINI: Yes.

MR. FAULL: PNR data were not transferred –

MR. FRATTINI: It’s the APIS [Advanced Passenger Information System] data.

MR. FAULL: Does everyone understand the distinction?

Q: Yes.

MR. FRATTINI: Yes.

MR. FAULL: APIS data apparently were transferred to Mexico in respect of flights from Europe flying over the United States to Mexico.

Q: Right.

MR. FRATTINI: Like we deal with PNR.

Q: Okay.

MR. FRATTINI: Because, as you know, we are reviewing PNR and we are defending PNR agreement before the European Court of Justice.

MR. FAULL: Yes, we’re in litigation over the agreement there.

Q: I know, yeah.

MR. FRATTINI: So that’s why for me it’s so important we have a clear and transparent confirmation about treatment of data under PNR agreement.

Q: Were you satisfied with that? The US privacy officials told me that –

(Cross talk.)

MR. FRATTINI: Technical talks were very positive.

MR. FAULL: It seems to have gone very well.

Q: Okay, good.

Q: I wanted to ask a follow up question to that too – and consider this a practice run for this afternoon because I’m sure you’ll get this question later. And I’m asking this even if you hadn’t come from Italy to your current post, but I wanted to ask you about the rendition issue, about the CIA issue where there are involvements and somewhat of a controversy with Italy over transporting somebody, Abu Omar, to a third country and Italy issuing arrest warrants for that.

MR. FRATTINI: Well, I know the situation because this case has appeared on the Italian press on the headlines for several, several days and weeks. I know that there is an investigation underway. I cannot make comments because I don’t know the substance.

Q: I know, but I guess what I was going to ask you is, is the European Union as a body, while you’re meeting with Secretary Chertoff and the Attorney General and someone, are you trying to craft some kind of policy so that in the future people can’t do that, or they need to do it with your permission? What are the ground rules that are –

MR. FRATTINI: Well, in general, because it’s not the only case that has appeared in the European press because it involves another Member State, Europe as a whole regretted, because it doesn’t appear in compliance with international principle of respect of human rights. But as regards specific case, there is an investigation underway, and I don’t know the case except –

Q: Are you talking about Germany or the Sweden case or –

MR. FRATTINI: The Sweden case – Sweden case.

Q: I guess I’m wondering if the European Union is trying to sort of bring the issue in general to the United States by saying we would like to go –

(Cross talk.)

MR. FRATTINI: Well, frankly speaking, I know quite well the intelligence community area because I was, in Italy, minister for coordination of secret services. So it seems to me not so easy, neither to explain nor to obtain reassurances about activities of secret services because is unlikely – is very difficult that a government can admit actions outside law from secret services. It is within their own responsibilities. I talk about secret services. It is extremely difficult for a government either to admit or to blame secret services for activities. There is an investigation – I do prefer to leave to the judges the power of investigating, and if is needed, to punish people acting outside the law. I don’t like at all this action.

Q: Ben Baines (ph), the Financial Times. There has been some criticism I’ve read in several articles from EU Member States saying that the United States has certain expectations for receiving shared information, but then at times seems unwilling to share classified, sensitive information with other countries. I was wondering if you could maybe address that a little bit.

MR. FRATTINI: Well, we will talk about this very difficult and very sensitive issue. I’m aware that also within non-European Member States there is still a reluctance to exchange confidential and secret information without appropriate guarantees of protection. If you think about protection of sources of intelligence, you can understand how much important it is, as a precondition, to have a framework of provisions allowing full protection.

So we will talk about the framework to protect confidentiality of information, and then we can move towards exchanging secret and confidential information. That’s why there is, right now, a positive exchange of information at bilateral level when there is full guarantee that receiving state will fully protect.

So just to give you an example, in Europe now we have established a body. We call it SITCEN – Situation Center – in Brussels where there is a common work of the 25 national secret services to put common analysis. We cannot talk about common information because, again, we don’t have, not yet, a framework of provisions guaranteeing full protection of confidentiality. But we start working together at least on analysis. And you can understand how much important to share analysis because we have noted in the past that on the same element, on the same situation, there were 20 different analyses. If I talk about establishment of terrorist cells in Member States, three different secret services have put three different analyses. And that’s why it’s so important to have now a common body where analyses – at least analyses – are shared. It’s the first step.

MR. FAULL: Any other questions?

Q: Could I just follow up on the data protection issue? I’m really curious about whether personal data is considered – whether email accounts that are held by Internet service providers are covered under that or considered personal data?

MR. FRATTINI: Our idea is to cover for six months Internet data – six months. And of course we understand that if a prosecutor demands to preserve one particular element and particular data even after six months, he can do, but general principle of retention applies to all data for six months. Then if there is a supplementary investigation requiring to retain data for more under responsibility of prosecutor or judge, it is possible.

MR. FAULL: If I may –

MR. FRATTINI: Yes.

MR. FAULL: We’re talking only about the fact of –

MR. FRATTINI: Not the content – not the content.

MR. FAULL: – a telephone call being made or an email being sent.

Q: Oh, okay.

MR. FRATTINI: Yeah, not the content.

MR. FAULL: So the numbers or the addresses that either are not the content – and we do accept that the fundamental principle is that that is data raising privacy issues worthy of protection in principle, but that for law enforcement purposes, for a limited period of time an exception may be made to that rule.

MR. FRATTINI: Yes.

MR. FAULL: The general principle is that those data are kept by the telephone company or the Internet service provider for billing purposes and then destroyed.

MR. FRATTINI: Yes.

MR. FAULL: That’s the current situation.

MR. FRATTINI: Yes.

MR. FAULL: But of course for public security purposes, exceptions can be made, and that’s what we’re trying to craft.

MR. FRATTINI: Just to recall an example that is extremely important in my view, as you know, not all European Member States right now retain data on phone calls. Well, the suspect terrorists are arrested in Rome at the end of July responsible for the attack on London, has been arrested only thanks to tracking by phone, in France, in the north of Italy and in Milan, in Bologna and then in Rome. That demonstrates the importance of tracking people through telephone, through phone calls. I'm not talking about the content, I repeat, but the fact that a phone call has been made from Paris to Berlin, the from Lyon to Rome, and then made it possible to arrest these people.

MR. FAULL: But not necessarily answered. One of the problems is that we’re –

(Cross talk.)

MR. FRATTINI: Also unsuccessful phone calls and interrupted phone calls because sometimes, as you know, interrupted phone call could be a start launching for a blasting. You can use as a receiver a mobile phone placed in the bomb. That’s why it’s so important. And in the investigations over Madrid attack, it was an essential element. Minster of Interior of Spain told that publicly in the Council of Ministers of Interior. That’s why it’s so important.

MR. FAULL: Maybe one last question.

MR. FRATTINI: Yes.

Q: I wanted to as you – I cover terrorism fulltime, mostly – (off mike). I wanted to ask you a question about the Communication on terrorist recruitment and what do you think – there is, understandably so, not a lot of detail in here about the actual terrorist threat itself, but I wanted to ask you about that. You talked about – I lost my place here – about how these organizations are becoming much more sophisticated and much more trans-global or trans-national. Can you go into what your thinking is on what the terrorist threat is now in Europe, but also beyond Europe, and also terrorism financing? I understand – you said you were meeting with the Treasury Department.

Here in the United States – they’ve been doing it since the day after 9/11 – (cross talk) – terrorism financing. It’s been one of the biggest weapons the United States Government has used but there are many people saying that it hasn’t been effective, that they haven’t reached the money that is being moved in other channels.

MR. FRATTINI: Yes.

Q: Can you go into that as well and how that –

MR. FRATTINI: Well, we have two new instruments now in Europe. On financing terrorism, a new Directive on money laundering has entered into force very recently, allowing and obliging to track all movement of money, obliging private and public sectors and actors to track all movements more than, if I'm right, 5,000 euro – very small amount – in order to make it possible to track movement of money. My intention is to extend this strategy towards the nonprofit sector, but I cannot do that by imposing a pre-cooked model and getting involved NGOs and organizations in order to get their own help in order to build a European code of conduct.

And the second element of this initiative regarding recruitment of terrorists, we have included not only soft measures like dialogue, like investments in education, but also hard measures like possibilities of prohibiting transmissions and broadcasting, inciting to violence. That is very important news and good news, in my view, because, as you probably know, there was a decision recently taken by the Brussels Committee on TV to ban transmissions of the Hezbollah TV in Europe by blocking satellite transmissions in nine Member States and so prohibiting the transmissions and the programs inciting to violence. That is a hard measure but in my view is absolutely necessary.

MR. PANGRATIS: Well, as you know, there is a lot of initiatives both in Europe and here. That’s why we wanted you to have the opportunity to receive more explanations of that -- in a complementary way I repeat -- to the 1:15 debriefing that is taking place in any case.

Thank you very much for being with us. Thanks to the Vice President, thanks to the Director-General.

MR. FRATTINI: Okay, thank you.

MR. FAULL: Thank you.

(END)

EU/US Troika Ministerial Joint Press Conference, US Department of Justice, October 6, 2005: European Commission Vice President Franco Frattini (center), flanked by (left to right) UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke & US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.