EU/USA — Agreement on Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP)

Sig­na­ture of EU-US agree­ment on finan­cial mes­sag­ing data for pur­pos­es of the US Ter­ror­ist Finance Track­ing Pro­gramme (TFTP)
The Euro­pean Union and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca signed today an EU-US agree­ment on the pro­cess­ing and trans­fer of finan­cial mes­sag­ing data for pur­pos­es of the US Ter­ror­ist Finance Track­ing Pro­gramme (TFTP). The sig­na­ture fol­lows the adop­tion by the Coun­cil — via a writ­ten pro­ce­dure — of a deci­sion plus accom­pa­ny­ing dec­la­ra­tions (11222/1/10 REV 1, 11222/1/10 REV 1 COR 1 and 11350/2/10).

The agree­ment was signed by Alfre­do PÉREZ RUBALCABA, Min­is­ter of Inte­ri­or of Spain, on behalf of the Euro­pean Union, and by Michael DODMAN, Chargé d’af­faires of the US Mis­sion to the Euro­pean Union, on behalf of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, in the pres­ence of Cecil­ia MALMSTRÖM, Euro­pean Com­mis­sion­er for Home Affairs.

The agree­ment will now be trans­mit­ted to the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment which needs to give its con­sent by a major­i­ty of its mem­bers before the agree­ment can enter into force. The next pos­si­bil­i­ty for the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to vote on the agree­ment is dur­ing the ple­nary ses­sion from 5–8 July 2010.

The agree­ment is meant to allow the US Depart­ment of the Trea­sury to receive finan­cial mes­sag­ing data stored in the EU in order to allow tar­get­ed search­es for counter-ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tions, while ensur­ing an ade­quate lev­el of data pro­tec­tion. Once approved, the agree­ment will run for five years. It will auto­mat­i­cal­ly extend for sub­se­quent peri­ods of one year unless one of the par­ties noti­fies the oth­er of its inten­tion not to extend the agreement. 

Under the TFTP, the US Depart­ment of the Trea­sury seeks to iden­ti­fy, track and pur­sue sus­pect­ed ter­ror­ists and their providers of finance. It was set up short­ly after the ter­ror­ist attacks of 11 Sep­tem­ber 2001. Rel­e­vant results of the US analy­sis have been shared with EU mem­ber states and have con­tributed to effec­tive inves­ti­ga­tion and pre­ven­tion of ter­ror­ist attacks, includ­ing attacks on EU citizens. 

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union 

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