Brussels, 21/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 21 April, the Spanish presidency of the EU made a commitment to the European Parliament to adopt a negotiating brief on Friday for launching discussions on the conclusion of the so-called “Swift” agreement with the US on the transfer of banking data for fighting terrorism. EU 27 home affairs ministers will give their views during the one-day Justice and Home Affairs Council, on Friday, 23 April in Brussels, indicated Diego López Garrido, the Spanish Secretary of State for European Affairs, during the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg. He gave a formal commitment to take account of the European Parliament's opinion so that the new agreement might contain “sufficient guarantees and safeguards”, particularly with regard to data protection, the right of appeal in US courts and limits of data transfer. During the debate, many MEPs underlined that the principle of transferring bulk data, went against the principle of data protection rights. “Bulk information is a problem for us” declared Maltese MEP Simon Busuttil (EPP). Although pointing out that he supported the rapid adoption of an agreement with the US, he warned, “Parliament wants an agreement but not at any price”. Birgit Sippel (S&D, Germany) indicated that she did not want any hasty conclusion to an agreement and pointed out that quality must prevail over haste. She explained that her group wanted the Council to postpone its decision until after 6 May, when the Parliament is due to adopt a resolution on Swift. She affirmed that “this mandate must be considerably modified if we are going to adopt it” and pointed out that so far any modification that had taken place was too little. According to the rapporteur on this dossier, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (ALDE, Netherlands), postponing Parliament's vote should not prevent the Council adopting the negotiating brief. She urged the Council and the Commission to settle the problem of bulk data transfer and insisted that the principles of necessity and proportionality must be respected. Garrido affirmed that all of the concerns expressed by MEPs would be included in the directives on negotiations that were going to be adopted by the Council. In the context of data transfer, he underlined the fact that the US should not be able to use them in any way they wished. “This is about transfer for fighting terrorism and organised crime in individual cases,” he said. He pointed out that the Council was absolutely committed to adopting a mandate that protected fundamental rights of European citizens and ensuring that it complied with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The European Commissioner for home affairs, Cecilia Malmström, declared that a team of EU analysts would be in charge of checking whether the data extracted conformed with the agreement and that a legal authority would be responsible for authorising the transfer of data to the US Treasury. Finally, that Commissioner pointed out that the transfer of data to third countries would not be in bulk. Malmström pointed out that she wanted to conclude an agreement before the end of June in view of ratification by Parliament in July. (B.C./transl.rh)