Brussels, 21/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - The transatlantic gap on data protection “can be bridged”, Axel Voss (EPP, Germany) said after discussions between a delegation from the European Parliament (EP) home affairs and civil liberties committee and US government ministers in Washington on 12 April. “We feel that the USA is ready to reach agreements with the EU on data protection issues right across the board. Now we need to stand firm on our core values”, said Voss. He said, too, with regard to the TFTP (Terrorist Finance Tracking Program)/SWIFT programme: “Our impression is that US authorities have been handling bank data responsibly and adhere to the spirit and the provisions of the SWIFT agreement”.
Although the issue caused great contention in the EP at the start of March, after publication of a mixed report by the Europol body responsible for data protection issues, Voss, who is the EP rapporteur on the revision of the EU data protection directive, is of the opinion that the problems come more from “clashes of competence between the European Commission, Europol and the European Parliament rather than the handling of data by the US”.
Of the current renegotiation of the passenger name record (PNR) agreement between the EU and the US, Voss said: “Whilst we agree on the need for such data for the fight against terrorism, there are still diverging views on the data protection standards”, indicating that discussions between the two parties was needed “to address the issues of maximum storage period” of European air passengers' data and on “ways of redress” for European citizens. With Parliament scheduled to vote on this issue in June, Voss proposes a more active role for the EP in the negotiations. “As Parliament has to endorse the final PNR agreement it would make sense for us to propose sets of provisions to the European Commission who is actually conducting the negotiations”, he said. (S.P./transl.rt)