Left MEPs: SWIFT agreement must not be pushed through

"The SWIFT agreement must not be pushed through", say Cornelia Ernst, Rui Tavares and Marie-Christine Vergiat (GUE/NGL) MEPs on Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee).

The provisional agreement, which will enter into force on February 1st, grants US anti-terrorism authorities access to European bank data in order to fight terror networks. According to the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament has the right of veto on ssuch proposals.. However, to date the Parliament has not even received the official text of the agreement, though this was promised for 25th January.  Rui Tavares of Portugal's Left Bloc pointed out that the Parliament has been treated in an "insulting and humiliating way by having to wait for a text that has already been leaked to the press time and time again". He also said that the so called "nine month temporary nature of the agreement is misleading as our data will be kept in store for five years".

"One day it may be available not to an Obama administration, but to a Sarah Palin one. No European can feel safe with that prospect, and a better agreement can be reached by the new Commission" he said.

"As early as November 2009 the agreement was pushed through the Council excluding Parliament from an equal decision-making competence. Now, Parliament is again being effectively bypassed since we have been only given one week to prepare and vote on the text", said Marie-Christine Vergiat of France's Left Front.

Cornelia Ernst, of Germany's Die Linke (The Left) emphasised that if the agreement is pushed through without the extensive involvement of the Parliament, this would not only ignore justified objections but would also be against EU law. "The German Federal Criminal Police Office has doubts about the use of the data in the fight against terrorism. The European Data Protection Supervisor has also voiced his displeasure since the agreement may violate European data protection laws", she added.