EU-US Agreement on the Transfer of Financial Messaging Data for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme
The Council adopted today the following declaration on the EU-US Agreement on the Transfer of Financial Messaging Data for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme:
"In June 2009 the Commission presented draft negotiation guidelines for a short-term TFTP Agreement to the Council. At the end of July 2009, the Council adopted negotiation guidelines for such an Agreement, knowing that in the absence of such short-term Agreement an important security gap would arise in which there would be a risk of losing the benefit of important leads obtained through the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme from European financial transactions for future terrorism investigations.
As SWIFT had clearly indicated that it would redesign its database at the latest by the end of 2009, it was impossible to wait for the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty before starting the negotiations on such Agreement. The important value of the TFTP, a United States Treasury Department counter-terrorism programme, for Member States' investigation and disruption of terrorism has been amply demonstrated, including in the second Bruguière Report which was provided to the European Parliament on 1 February 2010.
