Parliament forced the re-opening of negotiations by rejecting the previous proposal for an agreement on the transfer of financial data from the European Union to the US for the purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program in February. The information was transferred by Belgian based SWIFT, which handles 80% of all international financial transactions.

The European Commission came up with new guidelines for negotiations on 24 March, which will be discussed by EU ministers on 23 April. Once ministers OK the mandate, talks with the US can begin. The Commission wants an agreement before the end of June. Parliament isn't involved in the negotiations but will vote on the eventual agreement.

The draft mandate is under wraps but MEPs have seen it and voiced concerns during a meeting of the Civil Liberties Committee on Wednesday.

MEPs opposed to massive transfers

Dutch Liberal Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, who drafted the report rejecting the previous agreement, complained that “with these guidelines we are still talking about massive data transfers...Even with this new mandate the idea would be to transfer 90 million pieces of data each month.”

“We must avoid mass transfers from the beginning,” said Simon Busuttil, a Maltese EPP member. German Socialist Birgit Sippel added, “even the smallest bank is capable of individualising the data.”

“I am a bit disappointed that the Commission has not tried to look for an alternative” like a “double approach” in which data would be examined in Europe before being transferred to the US, Ms Hennis-Plasschaert said.

MEPs also asked whether European citizens would be able to appeal to US authorities in the event of an abuse of their personal data and raised concerns that the mandate does not respect the charter of fundamental rights.