European Parliament needs to reject the SWIFT deal

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: [Europa-Parlament muss SWIFT ablehnen | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1697]

After the Civil Liberties committee in the European Parliament (EP) rejected
on 5 February 2010 the interim nine-month SWIFT deal between the EU and US,
now it will be up to the plenary of the EP to confirm the decision on 11
February 2010.

The interim controversial deal which provisionally came in force on 1
February was negotiated to order to provide US with a legal background,
following new architechture of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank
Financial Telecommunication) which does not longer mirror EU transactions in
the United States since 1 January. However, the deal needs EP’s approval to
become legally binding. Under the new Lisbon Treaty, which came into force
in December, EP obtained extended legislative powers and has to approve any
new European law.

The main argument of the EP Civil Liberties committee to scrap the deal is
the lack of proper data privacy safeguards. The opponents of the agreement
also emphasized that by rejecting the interim deal now would give the EU the
upper hand for the final agreement, as only 60-70% of the Parliament’s
recommendations on data protection have been considered in the present text.

However, the US officials are pressing EU for a final agreement on bank data
access. On 6 February, during the Munich security conference, US national
security advisor James Jones restated the need for EP to allow American
investigators to access EU banking data in order to trace terrorism funding.

US foreign policy chief Hillary Clinton had phone conversations with EP
President Jerzy Buzek, and Catherine Ashton, her EU counterpart and,
together with US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, wrote a letter to
Buzek in which they expressed the hope that the EP vote would be positive
for the agreement.

EDRi has also explained in an FAQ on SWIFT sent to some MEPs that the
current interim framework does not meet EU data protection and privacy
standards and that “in effect, the agreement would violate established EU
and national law in this field, including the European Convention on Human
Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.”

EDRi is also pointing on the fact that a lot of data will in fact be shared
with the US because of the technical set-up of SWIFT. Thus the company can
not limit data searches to specific individuals. “In effect, it will have to
(and has in the past) transfer data about all transactions from a certain
country on a certain date. There have been reports that the U.S. Treasury
has received up to 25% of all SWIFT transactions. This is beyond any
proportionality and also puts the EU at risk of wide-scale economic
espionage.”

The debate on this topic will take place today, 10 February 2010 at 15 00
CET and can be followed live on the European Parliament website. The vote
will follow on 11 February 2010 at 12 00 CET.

EDRi makes a public call to all EU citizens interested in privacy issues to
call their MEPs before Thursday, 11 February 2010 to tell them to vote
against the SWIFT treaty.

EDRi public letter to MEPs – FAQ – Why should the “SWIFT” Interim Agreement
be rejected by the Parliament? (9.02.2010)
http://www.edri.org/files/SWIFT-FAQ-2010-02-09.pdf

In German
http://www.edri.org/files/SWIFT-FAQ_2010-02-10-DE.pdf

In Italian
http://www.edri.org/files/SWIFT-FAQ_2010-02-10-IT.pdf

In French
http://www.edri.org/files/SWIFT-FAQ_2010-02-10-FR.pdf

In Finnish
http://www.effi.org/uutiset/100209-swift-faq-sopimus.html

Live Coverage of the SWIFT debates in the European Parliament – 10.02.2010
starting with 15:00 CET
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/wps-europarl-internet/frd/live/live-video?language=en

US links EU security partnership to bank data deal (8.02.2010)
http://euobserver.com/9/29427/?rk=1

Clinton calls parliament chief over bank data deal (4.02.2010)
http://euobserver.com/?aid=29411

Euro MPs shun bank data deal with US (5.02.2010)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8500132.stm

EU lawmakers slam bank data deal with US (1.02.2010)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5200854,00.html

EDRi-gram: Bank data deal under heavy fire from EU Parliamentarians
(27.01.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.2/swift-deal-european-parliament