Waterloo for US authorities' attempts to access British bank transfers (South East Region Liberal Democrats)

South East Region Liberal Democrats <info@southeastlibdems.org.uk>

Waterloo for US authorities' attempts to access British bank transfers

February 11, 2010 4:53 PM
Originally published by Sharon Bowles MEP

The European Parliament has blocked attempts by the Obama administration and EU governments to allow American counter-terrorism authorities to access confidential data about EU citizens' financial transactions.

The blocked measure would have authorised an interim agreement between EU governments and the United States, which allows the financial messaging network SWIFT to share customers' transaction details with the U.S. government. SWIFT, based near Waterloo in Belgium, is currently responsible for communicating most transactions between financial institutions around the globe.

As Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Sharon Bowles was instrumental in the negotiations over the legislation from the start.

Sharon Bowles said: "This was a bad deal that undermined citizens' privacy and security. Contrary to the lectures we have received from the Obama administration, blocking a bad deal does not put our security at risk: subpoenas for SWIFT are not the only means to counter terrorist financing and there are perfectly valid other legal routes.

"It is possible to negotiate a satisfactory agreement that does not break EU law. That is what must be done and we are ready to do that. Unfortunately the US and the EU Council have tried to strong-arm us into a bad deal. Can you imagine the US Congress standing for that if it were the other way around?

"My concern has been to maintain the stability of payments systems, and SWIFT is a key part of the international financial system's infrastructure. The world needs money to go round if we are to dig ourselves out of the financial hole we are currently in, and we need companies such as SWIFT to do that. Anything which reduces confidence in the financial infrastructure is bad for the health of the global economy."

The legislation has been the subject of ferocious lobbying from the Obama administration, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner writing to MEPs to pressure them for consent. The Obama administration has maintained the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a Bush-era policy of issuing administrative subpoenas to gain bulk access to the details of all financial transactions conducted through SWIFT.

ENDS

Notes for editors:

SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. It is a private company located in Belgium that has become the global standard for international financial messages.