Ministers van Justitie willen hogere kwaliteit Europese paspoorten (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Facial images and possibly fingerprints will feature on EU passports under a proposal to be presented by the Commission to Justice and Home affairs ministers tomorrow (Thursday 19 February).

The proposal to harmonise security standards, including biometrics - fingerprints and facial images - for EU citizens' passports, is expected to be adopted by EU states within a few months, but the new passports are not expected to be issued before the end of 2005.

This means that the EU will miss the 26 October 2004 deadline imposed by the US, which will start demanding visas from EU member states if passports issued after that date do not have biometric information.

Under the proposals, a facial image will be mandatory in the new EU passports but the addition of fingerprints will be left up to individual EU states.

Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino will travel to the US in May to discuss the looming deadline with US officials.

However, for the US to change the October deadline it would have to go through Congress as it would require a change in the legislation.