Brussels, 27/01/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 27 January, the EU member states were reprimanded by MEPS, who said that the Council had deliberately circumvented the Parliament in order speedily to conclude an agreement with the United States on the transfer of bank data, the SWIFT Agreement. This interim agreement, deemed crucial in combating terrorism, is due to come into effect from 1 February and run until 31 October, in order not to interrupt a mechanism which will expire on 31 January. While awaiting the civil liberties committee vote on 4 February and the plenary vote on 9 or 10 February, MEPs reproached the Council for submitting the text of the agreement to Parliament only at the start of the week. “We're not at all happy with the way this has been done. The agreement was signed just before the Treaty came into effect but was only put to us this week. Now, we are asked to say amen,” railed Maltese MEP Simon Busuttil (EPP). Sophie In't Veld (ALDE, Netherlands) said the situation was “turning into a farce” insofar as a new evaluation report on the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP), which uses data transferred as part of the SWIFT Agreement, will only be published by former French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière on 4 February. In this climate of uncertainty, several MEPs from the Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups called for the provisional agreement to be rejected. Spanish Justice Minister Francisco Caamaño apologised for the inconvenience caused: this was largely due to having the agreement translated into 27 languages, he said. “The aim of this temporary agreement is to extend the existing system, but it is impossible to delay its coming into force without infringing international law,” he said, stating, however, that the Parliament would be fully involved in discussions on a long-term agreement. The rapporteur on this issue, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (ALDE, Netherlands) said that points of the agreement did not comply with European data protection rules. Her colleague Alexander Alvaro (ALDE, Germany) declared, “The Council should not be surprised if things go awry” in the vote. Busuttil called for more caution, demanding a legal opinion before voting on the substance. In't Veld asked that all the documents be made available, including the opinion of the Council's legal department. Director General of DG Justice, Freedom and Security at the European Commission Jonathan Faull refuted that there had been a “conspiracy” or any desire to humiliate the Parliament. The provisional agreement was important, he said, not only for the security of the United States, but for the EU too, and he gave assurances that the text complied with European data protection law. “If Parliament votes against, that will end the provisional agreement,” he added, stating that this would create a security and data protection “gap”. He warnedthat, in practice, this would mean that the Americans would try to obtain information directly from the member states. Thus, he argued, data protection arrangements on which the United States had given its word would no longer exist. However, Giovanni Buttarelli, Joint Data Protection Controller, said that if there were no agreement, national data protection rules would apply. In some instances, these rules were stronger, he said, than the present agreement. (B.C./transl.rt)