CIA compromise in doubt

Centre-right MEPs on the European Parliament’s committee investigating CIA activity in Europe are trying to get support for amendments to a draft report to be voted on next week (23 January).

But Jas Gawronski, the leader of the EPP-ED group in the committee, has said he does not "see much room for compromise" following discussions with the report’s author, Italian Socialist MEP Claudio Fava.

Gawronski said the most important amendments concerned correcting negative generalisations about the hundreds of CIA flights that passed through Europe when only 12 cases of extraordinary rendition are known to have taken place.

Centre-right MEPs are also keen to remove a reference in the report that "a temporary secret detention facility may have been located at the intelligence training centre at Stare Kiejkuty" in Poland.

Instead they will push for the amendment which states: "In the light of the above circumstantial evidences, it is not possible to acknowledge that secret detention centres were based in Poland."

Gawronski also said he would like to see parts of the report amended where the notion that intelligence agencies should remain secret is questioned. "Some people seem to want ‘CIA’ written on the tail of the plane," he said.

But the EPP-ED group is far from united on the overall report and Gawronski said he expected a split in voting by the group, as happened when the interim report was voted on in June, with some MEPs voting for, some against and some abstaining.

Centre-right MEPs on the European Parliament’s committee investigating CIA activity in Europe are trying to get support for amendments to a draft report to be voted on next week (23 January).