The European Court of Justice yesterday ruled that the May 2004 agreement between the European Community and the US on the processing and transfer of PNR data by air carriers is illegal."Neither the [European] Commission decision finding that the data are adequately protected by the United States nor the Council decision approving the conclusion of an agreement on their transfer to that country are founded on an appropriate legal basis," the ECJ said in a statement. It decided "for reasons of legal certainty and in order to protect the persons concerned" to keep the agreement in place until Sept. 30.

The Assn. of European Airlines said the ruling was not unexpected, since the judges followed the November 2005 opinion from the advocate general that the transfers fell outside the scope of Europe's data protection rules. "The ECJ ruled that the legal basis on which the Commission and the Council approved the EU/US agreement was inappropriate, yet they did not say that the agreement itself is illegal. There is no need to renegotiate the content of the agreement," AEA Information Manager David Henderson told ATWOnline. "We're confident the European Commission and other parties involved will work out a new legal framework which satisfies the court's ruling."

However, attorneys contacted by this website are not so certain it will be that easy to find a new legal framework, and certainly not within the four-month deadline. The European Parliament mounted the legal challenge to the agreement, contending it infringed upon European citizens' privacy rights and that the EU Council of Ministers decision to sign the deal struck by the EC in the name of all 25 member states lacked an adequate legal basis.