European Union Advances Airline Security Pact

The European Commission is moving ahead with an agreement to exchange data on airline passengers with the United States, a report says.

The action follows an adverse ruling by the European Court of Justice on the technical details of the agreement, the EU Observer said. The court said the wrong regulations were used to implement the agreement.

"It is very important to underline that the court did not rule on the content of the agreement -- it did not say it's illegal," a spokesman for the commission said.

The commission hopes that the governments of its 25 member states will sign on by July 3. Officials feared that the European Union would end up either with 25 separate deals on exchanging data or with chaos in the airline industry because of inability to address U.S. security concerns.

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