EU governments to defy parliament on data-sharing deal with US

Jan 22, 2010, 19:03 GMT

Brussels - European governments are set to reject the European Parliament's call to postpone the entry into force of the SWIFT financial data-sharing agreement with the United States, European Union officials said on Friday.

On Thursday parliament chief Jerzy Buzek said he would ask the EU member states to wait until the assembly gives its opinion on the deal, in a vote scheduled for February 9 or 10.

But a source in the EU council - the institution where national governments meet - told the German Press Agency dpa that the agreement 'will come into force provisionally' on the original date of February 1.

He specified that the 'definite' entry into force of the deal, however, will depend on the parliament's approval. If it decides to reject it, the SWIFT agreement will fall completely.

   The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is a Belgium-based consortium owned by banks and financial institutions that records every international money transfer. Its database is often useful for anti-terrorism investigations, particularly in the wake of the attempted suicide bomb attack on a US-bound plane in December.

   In 2006 it emerged that US agencies secretly used SWIFT data from a server the company held in Virginia, raising concerns in the EU about privacy rights. Since December 31 the information was moved to servers in Switzerland and the Netherlands, requiring an agreement to be struck between the EU and US on continued access to the database.

   EU ministers of justice green lighted an interim deal on November 30, supposed to come into force on February 1 and to run until the end of 2010, when a permanent agreement is due to be concluded.

   But they did not give the text to the parliament which, since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December, gained more oversight powers on justice matters.

The document will only be sent to members of parliament (MEPs) on Monday, after a formal decision by EU foreign ministers in Brussels. The assembly's justice committee is scheduled to start examining it on Tuesday.

On Wednesday MEPs expressed doubts on the deal, warning EU governments that their assent is not a foregone conclusion. In exchange for their 'yes,' they called for tight standards to be established on data protection and on the right of redress by citizens whose personal data is misused.