SWIFT Agreement

Commenting on the presentation of the new SWIFT agreement by EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmström, Greens/EFA expert on home affairs in the European Parliament, Jan Philipp Albrecht, comments:

"The European Commission risks another rejection in the European Parliament with its proposal for a new agreement with the United States on the transfer of SWIFT bank data. Commissioner Malmström should have known from the start that the central points of critique of the Parliament and a number of Member States have not been cleared with this proposal. Bulk data about completely unsuspicious persons will still be transferred to U.S. authorities and stored there for five years. This is in breach not only of the binding EU charter of fundamental rights, but also of recent rulings by the German Constitutional Court.

"There are also no further conditions for the open-ended agreement, such as an obligation to negotiate a binding data protection framework with the U.S. within a defined period. The EU therefore gives up its strong negotiating position vis-à-vis the United States and instead hands over a carte blanche for the surveillance of European data. Whoever now accepts this proposal will endanger the recently earned trust of European citizens in the European Institutions as defenders of their freedoms and civil liberties."

You can reach Jan Philipp Albrecht on his German mobile phone at 0175-1656698.