Europe sets course for new US deal on terror finance data

The European Union sealed a new mandate Friday to re-negotiate terms with the United States on sharing bank data across the Atlantic in the fight against "terrorist financing".

However, a shortfall of ministers from the 27 EU member states at a meeting in Brussels, designed to grant a formal green light for detailed talks means that the decision still needs to be properly ratified under bloc rules.

The existing framework covering the exchange of information on tens of millions of Europeans held by thousands of banks and other bodies broke down in January as rows over protection of liberties triggered a dogfight for control of the process among different EU institutions.

But Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalca said a "political agreement" on the so-called Terrorist Financing Tracking Programme was reached between the 12 who made it to the talks.

"My intention is now to start exploratory talks with the US at the beginning of May and move quickly once the mandate is officially adopted," said the EU's commissioner for home affairs, Cecila Malmstroem.

She said data protection guarantees under the negotiating mandate would include "a strict counter-terrorism purpose limitation" and the "right to terminate" the agreement in the event of breaches.

"This matter is very urgent," she underlined in a statement that targeted June for a signed EU-US deal.

"We know that there is a clear security gap since January of this year because TFTP data stored in Europe are no longer made available to the US Treasury Department."

Any deal requires the approval of the European Parliament, which has beefed-up powers of co-decision since the entry into force of the EU's Lisbon Treaty and which has begun flexing its muscles on a number of contentious issues.

Source: MSN