After a request from the Greens/EFA party, the European Parliament Conference of Presidents agreed that President Jerzy Buzek will send a letter to the European Union Council asking for the EU to break off its deal to provide bank transfer information from the Brussels-based SWIFT system to the United States. It is set to go into force on 1 February. Two German Members of the European Parliament (MEPs,) Greens/EFA Co-President Rebecca Harms and Green MEP Jan-Philipp Albrecht, a member of Parliament’s Civil Liberties committee, stated that “The EU Council has no right to allow the SWIFT agreement to take effect without the agreement of the European Parliament. Parliament must not be bypassed by the Commission and Council, which would be a breach of the Lisbon Treaty. Citizens’ rights must be safeguarded.”

SWIFT provides the US with banking information about EU citizens, although some countries, such as Greece, don’t allow Americans living there to use American banks as a wide to sidestep the requirement. Harms and Albrecht said that, “It is shameful that the Council has said it intends to supply the text of the agreement to the EU Parliament only next week, when it has already been published in the EU Official Journal. Parliament simply cannot cooperate on this basis. The major shortcomings we highlighted in November are still there. Legal protection of citizens’ rights is severely lacking and there is no role for any independent data protection body. Parliament is not being told what data will be taken, which authorities will receive the data and under what conditions they will do so. All this information is hidden in secret annexes. Under these conditions, the interim agreement must be suspended.”

They were supported by other parties in the Parliament. “SWIFT agreement must not be pushed through,” said declared Cornelia Ernst of Germany, Rui Tavares of Portugal, and Marie-Christine Vergiat of France, who are GUE/NGL MEPs on Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee.

The provisional agreement grants US anti-terrorism authorities access to European bank data in order to fight terror networks. According to the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament can veto it, but EU lawmakers didn’t even get the text of the deal, upsetting some members. Tavares said 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 pointed out that the so-called “nine month temporary nature of the agreement is misleading as our data will be kept in store for five years,” and said that future US administrations might misuse the information.  “No European can feel safe with that prospect, and a better agreement can be reached by the new Commission,” he said, noting that the EU’s executive branch has stayed on the sidelines during the debate. Ernst said if the agreement is pushed through without the extensive involvement of the Parliament that, “This would not only be against EU law but would also ignore justified objections. The German Federal Criminal Police Office has doubts about the use of the data in the fight against terrorism. The European Data Protection Supervisor also voiced his displeasure since the agreement may violate European data protection laws,” she said.