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EU Set to Renew Controversial Terror Finance Data-Sharing Deal
By Irene Madongo
printThe European Commission will reapprove a controversial agreement to share data on terrorist financing with the United States despite criticism from EU lawmakers, according to an individual with direct knowledge of the matter. Parliamentarians said in January that the deal, known as the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP), favored the United States by granting the U.S. Treasury Department the final say on whether to publish Europol audits of data-sharing. Starting this year, a 2010 agreement formalizing the arrangement automatically renews on an annual basis unless the Commission or U.S. officials oppose its extension. Given the program's usefulness, the "Commission has...
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Four years after rejecting a program to track terrorist financing over budgetary and data privacy concerns, the European Union is reconsidering the project following a string of deadly attacks in the United Kingdom and throughout the 28-nation bloc.
Countries in the European Union should improve how they share financial intelligence, broaden their asset forfeiture laws and consider new legislation to fight the financing of terrorism, officials said Tuesday.
Two of Europe's powerhouse economies are expected to push for tougher controls to stamp out terrorist financing this month in reaction to a spate of attacks on the continent.
The European Parliament approved a plan Thursday to allow U.S. terrorism investigators access to international interbank messaging data under a set of conditions intended to protect EU bank privacy.
The United States and European Union tentatively agreed Monday to a plan allowing the sharing of interbank messaging data as part of investigations into terrorism.
The rejection by the EU Parliament Thursday of a data sharing agreement with the United States is likely to leave U.S. investigators without timely access to European banking data for the second month in a row.
EU party leaders have rejected delaying a Thursday vote on an interim agreement to share European financial data with U.S. counterterrorism investigators.
An interim agreement allowing U.S. investigators continued access to European financial data in terrorism cases will likely be ratified in February by a skeptical EU Parliament, according to EU officials.
The EU Council passed a controversial agreement Monday to extend the access of U.S. counterterrorism investigators to European financial data by another nine months.
European Union justice ministers agreed Friday on guidelines for the sharing of personal data among law enforcement agencies and European courts, giving European citizens greater assurances of privacy in terrorism and criminal cases.
The agreement, announced June 27, resulted from months of negotiations after an EU advisory panel found that the consortium's sharing of information with the United States violated EU data protection laws.
An EU advisory panel determined that an international banking consortium violated data protection laws there when it complied with a U.S. administrative subpoena giving the Bush administration access to millions of private financial transaction records.