EU calls for common stance on airport body scanners

MADRID, Jan 7, 2010 (AFP) - The Spanish EU presidency called Thursday for a common European stance on the use of body scanners at airports as member states bickered over the issue after a failed plot to blow up a US airplane.

"It's better for Europe to have a common position because it makes no sense for European passengers to travel from London to Madrid and back and have different kinds of controls," Spanish Transport Minister Jose Blanco said.


"A common position would be beneficial for all of us" even if it wasn't binding, he told a press conference in Madrid.

Blanco was speaking after EU experts met behind closed doors in Brussels to discuss the issue, amid disagreement over the use of the controversial body scanners, capable of peering through clothes to create three-dimensional images of passengers and reveal any concealed weapons or explosives.

The European experts were also briefed by US representatives on the need for tougher air security, with the Americans stressing that "the terrorist threat has risen," according to one diplomatic source.

Several European countries, including Britain and the Netherlands, have decided to install the scanners at airports after Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was charged with trying to down a US-bound passenger jet from Amsterdam on Christmas Day.

Body scanners will also be introduced for experimentation in some French airports, France's civil aviation authority said Wednesday.

Other countries, such as Spain, are less enthusiastic.

The European Commission, which helps draft EU law, said there was "an exchange of views" over the technology and that it was considering "an initiative" on employing it.

"The commission is considering an initiative on imaging technology to reinforce passenger security, while at the same time addressing the conditions for using such technology, in particular, privacy, data protection and health issues," it said in a statement.

"People talk about not wanting to stand as naked in front of a security officer but you could have more or less diffuse images so you can see what is under the clothes but not properly see the body, that sort of thing," one EU diplomat said after the meeting in Brussels.

"There is also the need to discuss the provisions for storing the images and to whom these pictures can be shown," he told AFP.

EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the commission would examine the issue next week.

"It is better to have a European rule than to leave it to member states to decide," he said.

So far there is no common rule in Europe, though any of the 27 EU nations is free to introduce the scanners in its own airports as the British and the Dutch are doing.

The Spanish minister spoke of the scanners as a "last resort," saying that the traditional airport methods of detection had proved widely effective.

"We shouldn't act hastily, we must take a well-considered decision," he said.


by Ola Awoniyi
(c) 2010 AFP