EC/US: new negotiations on bank data transfer
25 March 2010
EP rapporteur on the “SWIFT” dossier Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert welcomed the proposals. She said the EC has to ensure greater transparency, effective rights to redress and rectification, a review mechanism and limitations on the scope and length of data storage.
EP rapporteur on the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP) Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (VVD, Netherlands, ALDE) welcomed today's proposal from the Commission for a negotiating mandate for a definitive agreement between the EU and the US that would fully involve the EP.
"The Commission has clearly listened and responded to Parliament's main concerns in relation to the transfer of financial data from the European Union to the US to aid the fight against terrorism. When Parliament blocked the interim agreement on 11th February, we did so because we remained unconvinced that European citizens' fundamental rights could be adequately protected. However we did not dispute the value of a terrorist finance tracking programme per se."
"Whilst the proposals will need to be closely examined in committee, I am encouraged by the inclusion of greater transparency, effective rights to redress and rectification, a review mechanism, judicial approval of data requests, limitations on scope and length of data storage, prohibition of data forwarding to third countries and references to reciprocity whereby the EU would develop its own terrorist finance tracking system rather than outsourcing intelligence gathering to the US."
"The Commission, Parliament and Council must now come together in a spirit of loyal cooperation to agree on the mandate and red lines for negotiating the definitive agreement."
"There remains a more fundamental question still to be answered as to how the EU should cooperate with the US on counter-terrorism measures in general and the use of data collected by private sector organisations for unrelated commercial reasons."
© European Commission
