EU Calls for Financial Transaction Monitoring Deal with U.S.

The European Union and the United States should try to reach a deal quickly on the way financial transactions are monitored to help the fight against terrorism, the European Commission’s security chief said.

An EU data watchdog earlier this year found that international banking network SWIFT broke privacy laws by allowing the U.S. Treasury Department to consult its records after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. European Security and Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini on Dec. 19 said the EU and the U.S. authorities should establish procedures for processing transaction data and options for using it to stop financing of terrorism.

“That would enable us both to avoid damaging our anti-terrorism efforts while reassuring customers ... that there are going to be controls exercised on the use to which the data is put,” Frattini told members of the European Parliament.

He said he hoped such an agreement could be reached by March.

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said earlier this year he wanted EU-U.S. talks to create common privacy rules for handling financial transaction records.

Following concerns over the SWIFT case and over the transfer of air passenger data, the EU and the United States started talks in November to establish broad guidelines over common data privacy rules.

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