Allister calls on UK to act to secure transatlantic travel
01 June 2006
The crisis looming for transatlantic travel, precipitated by this week's ruling of the European Court of Justice, must be resolved.
The cause of the ECJ ruling lies in the fact that the EU tried to misuse its powers on trade to make a deal with the USA on security issues, which are a national competence. Not surprisingly the ECJ ruled the steps taken ultra vires, though with the clear hope that this would induce Member States to surrender such security controls to Brussels. This must not happen. On the contrary, each Member State should now exercise its own jurisdiction to reach an acceptable arrangement with the US.
Accordingly, I am calling on the UK to proceed to do so and thereby protect both the continuity and security of transatlantic travel. If we wait for all 25 Member States to agree a common approach, not only will it be at the price of conceding further powers to Brussels but it will come with all the bureaucratic baggage which results from trying to accommodate 25 different approaches.
The UK Government's responsibility is to provide sensible travel and security arrangements for UK citizens and it should now get on with doing so.
