President Laszlo Solyom on Wednesday blocked implementation in Hungary of an agreement between the European Union and United States on the exchange of air passenger data, according to Reuters. Solyom sent a draft law enshrining the deal back to parliament, saying it did not protect travellers' rights. Last month's agreement gave U.S. law enforcement agencies easier access to air passenger data as part of measures brought in after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States Under the agreement, which ends a legal limbo for airlines, European airlines must pass up to 34 items of data, including passengers' addresses, telephone numbers and credit card details, to be allowed to land at U.S. airports. Solyom said Hungarian parliament should amend the bill and secure the "explicit approval" of passengers before their data can be sent overseas. "In my view the law does not include all the necessary and possible guarantees connected to its subject, therefore I do not agree with it in this form," Solyom wrote in a letter. The deal between the EU and the United States applies until July 2007. Solyom took his decision one day after U.S. President George Bush eased visa restrictions for east European states, which Hungary had lobbied for intensively. Washington said it would push for more flexible arrangements for a long-term agreement on data, such as for the right to hold data on passengers for longer than the current arrangement of 3-1/2 years.
