MEPs split over launch of another CIA report

The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee is split over whether to carry out a follow-up report into recent revelations on illegal CIA activity in Europe.

An informal meeting of MEPs will take place on Monday (11 February) to try to resolve the impasse.

Italian Socialist MEP Claudio Fava, who drafted the committee’s report on CIA activity completed last year, wants to carry out a second report taking into account recent developments and inquiries into abductions and renditions flights.

He also wants to document what governments, the European Commission and Council of Ministers have done in response to the recommend-ations for further inquiries made in the original report.

A report by Reprieve, a UK non-governmental organisation, last week stated that more than 700 prisoners were flown to Guántanamo Bay using Portuguese airports and airspace. A Danish television documentary claimed last week that an airport in Greenland was also used to transport prisoners.

But members of the centre-right EPP-ED political group have opposed a second report arguing that there is no new information to record. A recent meeting of the committee’s political group co-ordinators rejected the idea. "The overall view is: did anything change since the last report? Do we have any new evidence?" said an EPP-ED official.

A possible compromise could see the Commission and the Council questioned before the committee on whether they carried out the recommendations in the original report, the official said.

The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee is split over whether to carry out a follow-up report into recent revelations on illegal CIA activity in Europe.