EU follows American lead in the documentation of foreigners.

By CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 20, 4:55 PM ET

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Union leaders want their nations to fingerprint all foreign visitors and take other new steps to keep out illegal immigrants as part of a sweeping security overhaul proposed Friday.

The measures are similar to those already in place in the United States, and have prompted concerns about privacy and the rights of those seeking refugee status in the EU. But EU leaders suggested security is paramount.

At a summit, they said crafting a common border and immigration policy for Europe by 2010 "is a key priority for citizens" and pushed efforts to reach agreement to the top of their political agenda.

In a declaration Friday, the EU leaders ordered their governments to draft legislation on tougher new border security measures to ease the way toward a more seamless immigration and asylum policy.

These would include fingerprinting and screening for all visitors who cross the bloc's borders and using a satellite system to keep out illegal immigrants.

The screening would apply to everyone: Those who need a visa to enter EU nations, such as visitors from most African nations, as well as those who do not, such as U.S. citizens.

Foreign tourists on Paris' Champs-Elysees seemed to shrug off the proposed measures as part of the new world security landscape.

"I'm all right with fingerprinting, since I suppose it will enhance safety," said Gary Gordon, an attorney from Lansing, Mich.

Florida teacher Bridget Schmidt said she had "no problem" with fingerprinting, but added, "I don't feel any safer in the United States because they fingerprint people."

If all 27 EU governments approve all the immigration and security proposals mentioned in Friday's declaration, that would represent one of the largest security overhauls in the European Union and could cost billions of dollars.

The EU leaders brushed off heated criticism from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of a related new EU law on returning illegal immigrants. The law sets loose Europe-wide standards on how to treat illegal migrants in detention and expel them.

Chavez threatened Thursday to cut off oil and bar investment opportunities to EU nations if they applied the new rules, which were passed by the European Parliament.

He claimed the EU law would lead to mass deportations of migrants who would have to be housed in "concentration camps" until they were expelled.

The rules do not foresee that, but set out basic rights, including access to food, shelter and legal advice to illegal immigrants and bind EU nations not to detain them for more than 18 months before deportation or releasing them.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg laughed off the threat.

"As far as I know, Venezuela supplies oil mostly to the U.S. ... so it would not be that much of a deal," he said.

Slovenia's Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who chaired the two-day summit, said Chavez' reaction was "perhaps exaggerated, perhaps they come from not understanding well enough what this means."

Jansa also insisted the broader new proposals adopted by EU leaders Friday would not curb personal freedoms.

"This directive might be a problem for some but it is a step toward a solution on this issue, so that the EU can really provide for liberties, freedoms on which it is based, without jeopardizing these freedoms," he said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he would make immigration a top priority when he takes over the EU presidency from Slovenia next month.

The EU leaders said they would intensify work on approving measures that include how to attract highly skilled workers, what rights to give non-European residents and signing pacts with other countries to ensure they take back illegals caught in the EU.

"Modern technologies must be harnessed to improve the management of external borders," the leaders said. They asked their justice and interior ministers to present border proposals, including a Web-based pre-travel authorization system for foreigners by 2010.

Setting common security standards at airports, harbors and land-border checks is meant to filter out illegals and catch crime gangs and terror suspects before they enter the EU's 24-nation passport-free travel zone.

Friday's agreement is meant to revitalize efforts to draft common immigration standards, which were first launched by leaders in 1999.

Progress on crafting other common immigration rules has been bogged down by the complexity of aligning national immigration rules and strong disagreement over whether national authorities should give up control over who they let into their countries.

LSlice said:
Agreed. In fact, the Lisbon Treaty would create what would essentially be a European army. And England is much more of a police state then America.

Colinism said:

That is actually not a bad thing however, it's high time the Europeans paid for their own defense. those bases and troops can come back to the US creating jobs here.

LSlice said:

I agree with the later statement, but not the former. I''m not really a fan of large standing armies in general.

When you have such, there is a temptation to use them for purposes other then defense. Also, in the modern context, I don't see a huge risk of any first world country being invaded.

Colinism said:

Agreed, I don't want the Europeans to have a large army either but at least let them deal with their own defense needs so we can scale back our military spending a bit and spend the money here on infrastructure upgrades.

Colinism said:
all the rhetoric coming from Europe that the US is a giant evil Boogeyman,

LSlice said:
Agreed. In fact, the Lisbon Treaty would create what would essentially be a European army. And England is much more of a police state then America.

Colinism said:

That is actually not a bad thing however, it's high time the Europeans paid for their own defense.

SockPuppet said:

Source, please.

Colinism said:

So criticism of the Kyoto protocol, or perhaps the US being branded as some sort of lawless crime ridden state, when our crime rate has been falling for over a decade and yours has been rising. The only crime we still have higher than you is murder. Rape is so poorly reported a crime and so badly followed up on that it's almost impossible to get good statistics. beyond that it's all you.

SockPuppet said:

Source, please. Really, you know better than this.

Colinism said:

I'll leave you to simply remember every time the US was criticized for not ratifying the Kyoto protocol. As for the crime stats here you to this is a good link that shows crimes by nation broken down many different ways.

http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php

Assaults for instance.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_vic-crime-assault-victims

Robberies per capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rob_percap-crime-robberies-per-capita

SockPuppet said:

Thank you. That's a very useful site, I'll be looking there again.

Kyoto, inadequate as it was, remains an issue. The US refusal to ratify is related to a change of government in 2001, IIRC. That would mean that criticisms aimed at the USA should instead be directed at the President who refused to ratify it.

Now, how does the crime rate relate to your claim of " all the rhetoric coming from Europe that the US is a giant evil Boogeyman", exactly? (Which you haven't provided a source for.) I mean, I could understand it if you'd said that American crime rates were unjustly criticised by Europeans. But I'm not seeing a link between American domestic crime rates and America being a big evil boogeyman; that would surely be related to American foreign policy. Which, you know, we can get into, if you want to defend the Iraq war, the ABM radar in central Europe (I expect you will want that to be abandoned?), and suchlike issues.

SockPuppet said:
Kyoto, inadequate as it was, remains an issue. The US refusal to ratify is related to a change of government in 2001, IIRC. That would mean that criticisms aimed at the USA should instead be directed at the President who refused to ratify it.

SockPuppet said:

Source, please. Really, you know better than this.

SockPuppet said:

Source, please. Really, you know better than this.

LSlice said:

CCTV everywhere, an actual DNA database, frickin' RFID chips springing up everywhere. Just to name a few.

LSlice said:

CCTV everywhere, an actual DNA database, frickin' RFID chips springing up everywhere. Just to name a few.

ckdexterhaven said:

What are you, his college professor?

SockPuppet said:

No, I'm just trying to get some evidence I can actually work with, instead of his opinion. Which should stay in his blog.

And, of course, turnabout is fair play. As he well knows.

Colinism said:
Secondly you are a doody head.

Colinism said:

No, I'm just trying to get some evidence I can actually work with, instead of his opinion. Which should stay in his blog.

And, of course, turnabout is fair play. As he well knows.