Hopes rise for deal on fingerprint scheme

Date: 20/07/2000

By John Shelley

HOPES of a swift end to the turf war over the control of a proposed fingerprinting scheme for asylum seekers have been boosted by a European Parliament decision not to use the dispute to revive its concerns about details of the plan.

But EU officials warn that it will still be far from easy to get the proposal - seen as a key plank of the Union's immigration policy - approved before the end of this year, despite fears that a further delay could jeopardise the entire project.

The 'Eurodac' initiative has run into problems because of Union governments' determination to retain responsibility for the day-to-day running of the database, in the face of fierce opposition from the European Commission.

As this is a change to the original proposal, it had to be sent back to the Parliament for a second opinion, prompting fears that MEPs would seize the opportunity to revive their original objections to the scheme - most notably, the idea of fingerprinting children as young as 14.

But the assembly appears to be backing away from this approach, with Austrian centre-right MEP Hubert Pirker, the Parliament's rapporteur on the subject, pledging to focus only on the control issue.

He is, however, likely to take the Commission's side in the argument, because the Parliament would lose the right to be consulted on the subject if member states were tasked with managing the scheme.

EU governments are understood to be reluctant to hand this responsibility to the Commission because of uncertainty over whether it is capable of running such a complicated database - a fear which Commission officials insist is baseless.

"We have not just been sitting around idly waiting for the proposals to be agreed. We have been making good progress on the technical side," said one. "Everything will be ready as soon as we have the legal basis ready."

France is particularly opposed to the Commission controlling Eurodac because of worries that if the EU executive proves that it is up to job, Paris will come under increased pressure to agree to give up responsibility for managing the huge Schengen free-movement zone database.

Commission officials are concerned that France may try to use its EU presidency to stall the proposals, although they hope Paris will recognise the dangers of doing so.

They say that if Eurodac does not get off the ground by the end of this year, the €8.5 million set aside for buying the necessary equipment will be lost.

MEPs adamantly opposed to the scheme could then try to scupper the project completely by preventing it from being allocated funds in subsequent years. "If the budget is lost, this would be a very, very bad scenario," said one official.

Hopes of a swift end to the turf war over the control of a proposed fingerprinting scheme for asylum seekers have been boosted by a European Parliament decision not to use the dispute to revive its concerns about details of the plan.