Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-31-Speech-3-125"
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"en.20070131.20.3-125"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this extensive legal-political debate involves the fundamental issue of European sovereignty, as the chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs has also rightly pointed out. Consequently, there is a factor that has not yet been referred to that should not be left out, which is the statements made by the highest US authorities; I do not think they have been challenged, but they are worth mentioning.
The SWIFT system, which we are analysing in relation to European law, has certainly had the merit of cutting short some atrocious terrorist initiatives; it has made it possible to uncover or has helped to identify the perpetrators of the London bombings in July 2005; and it has at least led to the capture of key players, such as the terrorist Hambali, who seems to have been the brains behind the Bali bombing in October 2002. It should certainly also be said that the publicity surrounding this procedure has, in all likelihood, led many terrorists to give up using such methods.
On the other hand, it is undeniable that, when the SWIFT society was faced with a contract involving both European law and US law, it confined itself to negotiating data protection mechanisms with the US Treasury Department without obtaining further safeguards.
This is a problem that must be addressed, as is the problem of the European Central Bank’s role and responsibility. The ECB had been informed about the issue right from the start, and it played a leading role in this instrument – I shall not go into the matter of its transparency. Before the Committee on Civil Liberties, the ECB, through its president, Mr Trichet, sheltered behind the confidentiality agreement among the ten banks and also claimed that it had not been able to give SWIFT its blessing because that was not within its power.
What, then, we wonder, are the powers of the ECB if it does not have power in a situation like this one? This is a very important point, and I think we will have to thoroughly re-examine the ECB and its transparency."@en1
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