In a very tense vote, a clear majority of MEPs put an end to the interim agreement between the United States and the European Union on US access to the financial data of European citizens managed by the Belgian firm SWIFT. The European Commission and the EU Council will have to renegotiate an agreement considered “bad” for personal data protection. The EP intends to play its role in the renegotiation using all its new powers under the Lisbon Treaty.

The jubilation, on 11 February in Strasbourg, probably went unnoticed in Brussels, where the EU heads of state and government were busy with Greece’s economic problems (see separate article), and in Washington, where the US administration was snowed in.

But the EP achieved its result: it turned down the EU-US agreement on the continuity of the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP), endorsing the recommendation of Dutch Liberal rapporteur Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert by 378 to 196. To convince fellow members, she explained: “If the US administration proposed something equivalent to the Congress – transferring in bulk all banking data on American citizens to a foreign power - we know what they would say”. In other words, the agreement provides for no reciprocity for the EU. The rapporteur was already assured of the support of her Liberal group, the Socialists, the Greens and the radical left.

Most of the EPP Conservatives, the assembly’s leading political group, defended the agreement in the name of security. But the EPP’s German CDU-CSU members refused to endorse it, arguing that it runs counter to fundamental rights and pointing out recent personal data scandals in Germany. The EP, uncompromising in its demand for guarantees on data protection, which could not be met by the Spanish EU Presidency, began by turning down the EPP’s request for postponement of the vote, supported by the Americans, the European Commission and the Spanish EU Presidency.

“SETBACK” FOR EU-US COOPERATION

The US Mission in Brussels reacted immediately, seeing the vote as a “setback for counter-terrorism cooperation between the United States and Europe” and adding that the United States was “disappointed”. A spokesman for the UK government also pointed out that SWIFT data had in the past “provided vital information against terrorists who had planned or committed attacks against EU citizens”.

There is already an obvious fear among Europeans of seeing Washington negotiate bilateral agreements directly with Belgium, where the SWIFT registered office is located (the firm manages the data of some 8,000 banks worldwide), and the Netherlands, home to the firm’s data server. “I don’t think Belgium and the Netherlands will want to accept this responsibility,” observed Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Greens-EFA, France-Germany), adding that “the EU and the United States now have to find a solution to this conceptual difference on the protection of personal data”. Although she regrets the outcome of the vote, the new Home Affairs Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, echoed that view. “The Commission’s role will be to ensure that all relevant guarantees for the privacy of European citizens and for data protection are introduced into the potential future agreement,” she said. From Brussels, EP President Jerzy Buzek (EPP, Poland) warned: “It is very important that outside of Europe we speak with one voice. We should elaborate a common solution approved by both houses - the European Parliament is ready for this”.

With this vote, the assembly also sends the Council a signal as to its new powers, particularly its right to veto international agreements, granted by the Lisbon Treaty. The TFTP, set to run for nine months from 1 February, was negotiated without Parliament.