SWIFT Agreement
Parliament gives its approval prematurely
Commenting on the vote in the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament, and the forthcoming plenary vote on Thursday afternoon on the SWIFT agreement for the transfer of banking data to the U.S., Green MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht said:
"The decision of the Conservatives, Social Democrats and Liberals to give consent to the new SWIFT agreement is disappointing. Such premature action makes it more difficult to anchor a high level of fundamental rights at the international level. Instead, the EU now seems to be satisfied with the low level of protection in U.S. law in which legal protection by independent judges is replaced by the will of the administration, and ubiquitous surveillance is preferred to individual judicial decisions.
"Without a binding sunset clause in view of the proposed transatlantic framework agreement on data protection, we are still transferring bulk data in breach of EU law and without any substantive judicial review, violating the fundamental rights of completely innocent European citizens. In addition, we also have the absurd and probably illegal situation in which Europol alone is used as the approval authority for requests from U.S. investigators. This is absurd, because the European police authority has a clear interest in the results of any transfers."
For inquiries please contact Mr. Albrecht on his German mobile phone number +49 175 1656698.
