Brussels, 20/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - The EU and the United States have reached a preliminary agreement on the way US authorities may in future consult banking data transferred by the company SWIFT to the US Treasury Department (EUROPE 9313). “EU/US discussions on SWIFT are the subject of agreement”, a diplomat told EUROPE on Wednesday. The agreement will finally take the form of unilateral commitments although a framework agreement was initially expected (EUROPE 9357). According to the diplomat, SWIFT is finalising its discussions with the US authorities in order to subscribe to the “Safe Harbour” early July, thus allowing transfer of SWIFT data to the United States for commercial purposes. The Safe Harbour agreement (for a secure base), which took effect in 2001, allows information of a personal kind to continue to be transferred between the two continents. This is normally proof allowing data transfer to come under the 1995 directive on data protection (EUROPE 7767). Through their unilateral “representations”, the US authorities agreed that the period of non-extracted data retention cannot exceed five years from the day when this new agreement takes effect. This, however, does not concern data going back to before 2001. The United States has also agreed to set up a surveillance mechanism with an “eminent” EU representative put in charge of ensuring that data protection is complied with. The representative would draft a surveillance report and also be involved in the data deleting process. The American text will be presented to the EU ambassadors on 27 October with a view to its likely adoption. In order to make everything official, the EU should for its part recognise that the unilateral American commitment shows that the USA is willing to allow an adequate level of data protection. The respective unilateral commitments of both parties, to be officialised in the form of letters, will then be published in the Official Journal. (bc)