US embassy cable - 05BRUSSELS2312

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 
.