Brussels, 27/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - In a meeting held within the framework of the Justice and Home Affairs Council on Friday 23 April, Luxembourg Minister for Justice François Biltgen declared that the draft negotiating brief for concluding an agreement with the US on banking data transfers for combating terrorism (“Swift”) is “satisfactory”. During the meeting, member states reached a political agreement on the draft mandate, whose adoption is programmed for 10 May (EUROPE 10125). The minister indicated that “overall, we managed to reach an agreement on a significant number of sensitive issues”. This involves, for example, putting a time limit on the future agreement for fighting terrorism. Member states pointed out that data transfer to the US could only be done in the context of fighting terrorism. They also said that US requests for transfers must also have a link with the issue of terrorism and underlined the need for reciprocity with the US. Therefore if the EU is setting up its own programme to fight the funding of terrorism (based on the US TFTP system), the US must also make a commitment to provide data stored on US territory. In the context of personal data protection, Biltgen explained: “A citizen will have rights in the US: the right to access and a right to correction and appeal”. According to the minister, there are still a number of questions pending, such as the bulk transmission of Swift data to the US, which requires “a limitation on the maximum time data will be stored”. The draft therefore mentions the fact that data will be kept for as short a time as possible, whereas the previous agreement stipulated a data retention period of five years. The real progress made in this agreement, however, can be located in the fact that data transmission to third countries will require “prior agreement from the competent authority based in Europe which will be able to determine the place of residency of the individual concerned or the place where the data is kept (the Netherlands)”, he added. Member states also inserted a common declaration in the mandate from the Council and the Commission concerning the setting up of a “a competent European institution” in charge of periodically authorising the transfer of data to the US and verifying the compliance of US requests with the future agreement, explained Biltgen. So far, we still do not know what this institution will be. The Commission is proposing that the institution is based in the Netherlands and that it functions within the framework of mutual legal assistance agreements. The European Parliament, however, and many member states (France, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) oppose this solution. The other idea consists of giving Europol or Eurojust new powers, even if this involves a risk of taking more time, given the need to amend regulation setting up these agencies. The idea of setting up an ad hoc control authority is also currently being discussed. Finally, member states agreed that the future agreement would last five years, whereas the Commission draft mandate stipulated an indefinite period. (B.C./transl.fl)