On Feb. 12, UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told reporters in Washington that the US is asking EU members to enhance security measures on westbound transatlantic flights in exchange for relaxed visa regulations. An MOU reportedly was sent to the 27 EU member states asking them to allow US air marshals on all flights operated by US carriers, The Guardian reported. Currently, seven countries allow US marshals to board flights at their point of origin.

"There is interest in how and whether it's possible to strengthen the security of those traveling between Europe and the US. This is a request to the EU to look at the conditions around that travel to see what more we can do to strengthen it," Smith said, without confirming the marshal provision. However, Czech Republic Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg told the paper that "lamentably, it seems marshals will be necessary in the future."

Residents of the 12 nations that have joined the EU since 2004, save Slovenia, are required to have visas to enter the US, according to The Guardian. "In any visa waiver scheme there are expectations from any country for whom you waive your visa requirements," Smith said. New terms also call for the provision of PNR data for passengers overflying the US but not landing in the country, the paper said. Assn. of European Airlines called that possibility "absurd" and said there is "no international legal foundation" for such a requirement.