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With Vote Likely This Week, Fate of EU-U.S. Swift Agreement Too Close to Call
By Colby Adams
printEU party leaders have rejected delaying a Thursday vote on an interim agreement to share European financial data with U.S. counterterrorism investigators. The EU Parliament remains split on the controversial nine-month accord, which formalizes when U.S. investigators can view bank data stored by the Brussels-based Society for World Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) as part of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP). The agreement, which became effective on Feb. 1, must be replaced by a permanent agreement by Oct. 31. With both supporters and opponents claiming a narrow majority, the largest voting bloc in favor of the accord, the European People's...
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The 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.
EU lawmakers will discuss controversies later this month surrounding an agreement to share data on terrorist financing with the United States after parliamentarians Thursday called aspects of the deal "unjust."
As the European Union weighs a new raft of data protection standards, some bankers believe that they can't meet both anti-money laundering demands and Europe's privacy expectations, according to an academic.
Despite tightened controls on interbank messaging, some bankers looking to hide the role of their blacklisted clients in international wires need only type a single key on their keyboard, according to experts.
Ongoing negotiations between the United States and European Union on a broad data-sharing arrangement will likely be complicated following the leaked disclosure this month of a transnational American surveillance program.
The government of Iran and banks under its influence are increasingly using investments in foreign financial institutions as a means to circumvent sanctions, including restrictions on interbank messages, say sources.
Representatives of the world's primary financial messaging platform are lobbying U.S. lawmakers to abstain from blacklisting additional Iranian banks in future and pending legislation, say congressional sources.
The disclosure that U.S. officials have solicited and directly received data from foreign banks on transactions tied to Iran is spurring talks among European lawmakers, according to Alexander Alvaro, an EU Parliament supervisor.
A European Union Commission report published Thursday concluded that U.S. Treasury officials had abided by all data security provisions contained within a controversial transatlantic bank data sharing treaty.
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 European Commission proposed Wednesday a data sharing agreement that would grant European Union investigators access to information on U.S. bank accounts in cases of suspected terrorist ties.
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.