The Italian paper Corriere della Sera (15 May, p 1 and 14) interviewed Berlusconi's Minister of the Interior Signor Claudio Scajola, at the G8 summit in Canada. He said,

"We must get to the point in Europe of bringing in a single passport, and we are nearly there. Also fingerprints on ID documents. The new identity card which we are planning together with Germany will have a space for finger prints."

Q: "So, will everybody's finger-prints soon be taken?"

Scajola: "In Berlin, with the German Interior Minister Otto Schily, we have created a working group which is planning a new identity card. A document which amongst other characteristics will also a space for fingerprints, which must be taken from everyone, including the Italians [and presumably all EU inhabitants, - the British too?!]. But in the new ID card which we have already presented in Italy [presumably as a bill in the Italian Parliament] there is a chip embedded to store bio-metric data." [He goes on to say that this is to stop terrorists and illegal immigrants etc.]

Doubtless British Europhiles will say, "This will never happen, it is just the Italians and Germans talking, nothing has been officially presented, etc. so go back to sleep."

I wonder.  Two major EU governments, one centre-left, the other centre-right, seem to agree on this issue. Somebody in Parliament ought to ask the British government if they agree with this, or if not, will they veto it if it is ever presented to the Council of Ministers?

See also the iConservative article "Privacy and the Euro". Click here