EU Parliament on the brink of rejecting SWIFT deal with US - Summary

Wed, 10 Feb 2010

Strasbourg - Anti-terror cooperation between the European Union and the United States hung in the balance Wednesday as the European Parliament prepared to debate the merits of a deal to share data on bank transfers, officials said. The so-called SWIFT agreement allows the United States to collect EU citizens' banking data for anti-terror investigations. A nine- month interim version came into force on February 1, which parliament could reject in a vote set for Thursday, unless a last-minute compromise is found.

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, a Dutch deputy who drafted a report approved last week at committee level that recommended rejecting SWIFT, said in a debate Wednesday that parliament "cannot tell EU citizens it is selling out."

The European Commission - the EU's executive - and the EU Council - the body where national governments are represented - issued written assurances to members of parliament (MEPs) that their concerns will be taken into consideration in forthcoming talks with the US over a permanent SWIFT deal.

But Hennis-Plasschaert judged such guarantees to be "insufficient" and warned the interim deal would let the US access "millions of records of EU citizens." She added that parliament was tired of being "forever being promised jam tomorrow if only it was patient today."

The Dutch MEP was backed by her own liberal group and by socialist, greens and left-wingers. "As far as my group is concerned (...), I'm going to recommend rejection," said Socialists and Democrats' (S&D) group leader Martin Schulz.

Deputies want stronger safeguards on data protection, and access to classified documents which would normally be available only to the EU council and commission.

Spanish Interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, representing the EU's current presidency, said SWIFT data was used to investigate al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist acts such as the March 11, 2004 bombings that killed 191 persons in Madrid and to prevent another attack on Barcelona.

"If we reject this agreement, I think we will all be a little less secure," he warned.

But only the conservative European People's Group (EPP) said it would vote in favour, while the British-led European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) suggested putting off Thursday's vote in order to have more time to evaluate the guarantees offered to parliament.

Interior commissioner Cecilia Malstrom said a delay "might be a good idea."

The anti-SWIFT camp has been represented so far by a center-left coalition of liberal-democrats, socialists, greens and left-wingers, plus renegade German and Austrian conservatives.

Speculation mounted Wednesday on whether the commission and the council's pledges would convince some MEPs to switch sides, effectively splitting the anti-SWIFT coalition, or support the compromise to delay the vote.

If the 'no's' prevail, anti-SWIFT MEPs are convinced a new agreement can be negotiated in a few weeks. In the meantime, the US would request SWIFT data through EU national governments' channels, leaving no security gap.

US and EU governments, along with the commission, lobbied hard for the deal to be approved. On Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner invited MEPs to Washington to see for themselves how the SWIFT data was being used.

Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso wrote Tuesday to parliament chief Jerzy Buzek, stressing that "the interim agreement is a very important element of the relations between the European Union and the United States in the field of security and the fight against terrorism."

Parliamentary insiders say "no" vote would be a further testimony of parliament's increased status under the Lisbon Treaty, which reformed the EU's workings since it came into force in December.

But it may also jeopardize relations with the US at a time when EU leaders are still reeling from President Barack Obama's decision to snub a planned EU-US summit in May.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/308529,eu-parliament-on-the-brink-of-rejecting-swift-deal-with.html.