The European Union signalled today it could give the United States limited access to its police databases in a bid to resolve a long-running visa row with Washington.
The offer, likely to stir up European concerns about data privacy, would be an attempt to get all 27 EU member states into the US visa-free system. But it would apply only if the EU received similar data from Washington, a senior EU official said.
"We are prepared to sit down with our American friends and discuss on a strictly reciprocal basis what information may be needed to be shared to include our member states in the visa waiver system," Jonathan Faull, the EU executive's director for justice and home affairs, told a news conference.
Among its databases, the EU stores asylum seekers' fingerprints and plans to do the same with visa applicants. Countries in its Schengen border-free area also have a database for people searched by police and for stolen vehicles.
Mr Faull said the EU would not give full access to its databases but needed to confer with the United States to see what data it wanted.
Visa-free travel to the US is already enjoyed by citizens from 15 EU states - which include Slovenia and all the old EU member states that joined the union before 2004, except Greece. Citizens from the 12 remaining EU states must still apply to their local US embassy and pay for visas when they plan to take a holiday in the US, visit a relative or go on a business trip.
The Bush administration's decision to sign separate, preliminary visa deals in recent weeks with several ex-communist central European countries instead of with the EU as a whole has caused tensions within Europe and with Washington. Those deals did not include access to EU databases.
The EU and the United States agreed last month to defuse the crisis for now by allowing talks between Washington and individual EU states to run in parallel with EU-US talks. Tomorrow, EU justice and interior ministers are expected to give the European Commission a formal mandate to negotiate on EU matters.