Member State Representatives in Brussels (Coreper) are preparing today for the forthcoming Justice and Home Affairs Council at the end of the month which is due to decide on a draft agreement between the EU and US on the processing and transfer of banking data for purposes of anti-terrorism, so called "SWIFT agreement".  In rushing towards a decision on the last day of the Nice Treaty the Council appears intent on ignoring legitimate parliamentary concerns over the deal being finalised.

Sophie In't Veld MEP (D66, NL) speaking on behalf of the ALDE group said: "The Council should not override the European Parliament but reject the signing of the SWIFT agreement before the 1 December. With this agreement, European governments would allow the US Treasury Department to access European citizens' financial data.  The ALDE group has been repeatedly criticizing this agreement, as it was not only perceived as a restraint on European sovereignty but as a massive intrusion into every single European citizen's privacy."

"Regardless of our criticism, European governments appear willing to sign the agreement on 30 November, just one day before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which would finally empower the European Parliament to influence the negotiations."

Alexander Alvaro MEP (FDP, DE) who raised initial concerns about the SWIFT data transfer in the last Parliament stated: "We ask all national representatives to reject the current draft Council Decision. The democratically elected Parliament must be fully involved in the negotiations. We did not concertedly fight for so many years for a new era of cooperation in European domestic policies just to be hoodwinked in the final stages".