EU retaliates against new U.S. travel restrictions

Things are getting hot over the Atlantic, and we are not talking about the weather. For a while it appeared as if the United States and the European Union were close to an agreement on travel security measures, but now the EU is threatening to impose tit-for-tat entry restrictions on all U.S. citizens traveling to Europe in response to new American laws designed to strengthen security at airports and prevent would-be terrorists entering the country. U.S. tourists can now travel to Europe without a visa. The Guardian’s David Gow writes that Franco Frattini, justice and home affairs commissioner, is drawing up plans for an EU-wide system of “electronic travel authorization” (we suspect the Spanish authorities would not appreciate the acronyms — ETA) similar to that written into U.S. law by President George Bush late last week as part of new homeland security rules proposed by the 9/11 commission and endorsed by Congress.

ETA would require tourists from fourteen mostly West European states, including Britain, benefiting from the U.S. visa waiver program to register online and give details of their passport, travel plans, and planned social and business meetings at least two days before departure. A similar scheme is now in effect in Australia. The new system has already raised fears about privacy protection as the EU and the United States already exchange information about transatlantic passengers and airline manifests, with several would-be travelers refused entry to planes at U.S. insistence. Business associations and leaders of the hospitality industry have argued that the new U.S. restrictions would deter both business travel to the United States and tourism in general. They should worry, too: As we wrote two weeks ago, tourism is down 10 percent in the United States since 2000 while it is up 13 percent in Britain and 20 percent in France.

The ETA system has been discussed with Paul Rosenzweig, DHS deputy assistant secretary, in Brussels on Monday, and will be presented to the EU’s twenty-seven interior ministers next month. Frattini has also expressed concerns that other aspects of the homeland security bill signed by Bush go too far, especially the enforced screening of all cargo on passenger aircraft within three years and the scanning for nuclear devices of all foreign container ships heading to the United States.