(Releads with end of the meeting, quotes, details)
By Ingrid Melander
BRUSSELS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - A divided European Union held
off from ordering legal action against the Czech Republic on
Thursday for signing a bilateral air security and visa pact with
the United States.
EU interior ministers agreed to work on common guidelines on
the issue. But while the bloc's top justice official said this
meant the EU as a whole would now negotiate with Washington, the
Czech Republic said it would go ahead with its own talks.
The issue has sparked divisions between older and newer EU
members like the Czechs, who are frustrated at their continuing
exclusion from the U.S. visa waiver scheme.
The European Commission and some older EU states say
bilateral talks infringe on the authority of Brussels over visa
and border policy. They also fear Washington may use such pacts
to press EU member states to hand over more privacy data on air
passengers than it currently receives under a U.S.-EU deal.
The Czech government angered the EU's executive Commission
by signing a deal this week designed to make it easier for its
citizens to travel to the United States without visas.
Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer said Prague had no
alternative as EU-U.S. talks had failed to get his country, an
EU member since 2004, into the U.S. visa waiver scheme.
"We've been waiting for four years to share not only the
duties but also the freedoms (of being in the EU)," Langer told
reporters on Thursday. "We won't have to wait in line, we won't
have to pay for visas, we'll feel like a real partner," he said.
"I am not a slave of the European Commission," he said,
adding his country would only accept EU guidelines if it was
allowed to continue its own talks.
Hungary and Estonia, countries which also joined the EU in
2004, are seeking visa-free access to the United States for
their citizens and are holding similar talks.
MEETING NEXT MONTH
"We cannot tolerate any violation or discrepancy ... from
European legislation in visa-related matters," EU Justice and
Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said after what diplomats
described as intense talks on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the European Commission said it reserved the
right to take action against Prague. Frattini said he would not
take the Czech Republic to court for now because the deal it
signed was only an outline pact and its implementation was key.
EU governments will try to agree before a ministerial
meeting with the United States on March 13 on how far bilateral
deals can go.
Most EU states are already part of the U.S. visa waiver
programme, but not 11 mostly ex-Communist countries that joined
the bloc in 2004 and 2007, along with older member Greece.
Diplomats said current EU president Slovenia had suggested
joint limits for EU countries that would include not handing out
more data on air travellers than agreed in an overall EU-U.S.
pact, not giving Washington access to EU police databases, and
following EU instructions on the Internet visa form.
(Additional reporting by David Mardiste in Tallin; Editing by
Keith Weir)
