Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-03-Speech-1-110"
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"en.20060703.16.1-110"2
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".
Mr President, for the record I wish to confirm that the Commission accepts all amendments that reflect the agreement allowing the adoption of this proposal in a single reading. I have arranged for a list of the Commission’s position on all amendments to be handed to the secretariat for inclusion in the record.
Let me stress once more that non-compliance by 1 January 2007 with the agreed international standards to ensure an effective fight against the financing of terrorism will not only send a negative message to the financial community on Europe’s commitment to fight terrorism. Non-compliance would also have significant economic consequences due to disruption of money flows from and to the European Union.
The Commission has been ready to take the concerns on board. The compromise found is a good one. It will make Europe a safer place and show that Europe lives up to its responsibilities in the world. I count on your support in bringing this dossier to a successful conclusion now at first reading, thus avoiding lengthy discussions and probably less satisfactory results at second reading.
Some Members raised subjects this evening that are reflected in amendments that the Commission is not in a position to accept and these relate to the following. A threshold of 1000 euros or dollars for incoming transfers would deprive authorities in charge of fighting money laundering and terrorist financing of an effective means to do their job. Below the threshold, information on the payers would not have to be collected or recorded. The risk is that these funds could be used for financing new terrorist attacks.
Terrorist acts can be organised with little money. It has been estimated that the cost of the Madrid attacks only amounted to about EUR 8000 and any threshold for incoming transfers can easily be abused by dividing the amount to be transferred into several payments below the threshold.
The general sunset clause that would limit the applicability of this regulation in time: this was not accepted by the Council either. Such a clause could be useful in certain cases in the context of better regulation, but the Commission does not see added value in including this general clause in this regulation. Inserting this clause would mean that users and providers of payment services would be deprived of the necessary legal certainty.
A comprehensive review clause is no doubt better suited for this regulation. If it turns out in the light of the review that changes are needed, the Commission will set them in motion and I therefore appeal to the House to accept this sensible solution.
The comitology procedure under the provisions of this regulation covers a special procedure of authorisation by the Commission for Member States to conclude bilateral agreements with territories or countries outside the Community. Member States authorised to include such agreements will benefit from derogations from the obligations under the regulation. Such waivers will allow Member States to treat transfers of funds between that country or territory and the Member State concerned as transfers of funds within the Member State.
Amendment 103 limits in time, until 1 April 2008, the possibility for the Commission to grant such authorisations. Imposing such a sunset clause is clearly not in line with the recent agreement on the revised comitology procedure. As part of this deal both the Council and Parliament agreed not to limit in time the powers granted to the Commission. For the same reasons, Amendments 20, 22 and 24 are not acceptable either.
Some of you have raised the SWIFT crisis widely reported in the media during the last few weeks. You are aware that the issue is on Parliament’s agenda later this week and my colleague Mr Frattini will make a declaration on behalf of the Commission. We will make sure that we have all the facts of this case before taking any decision on further action.
As far as this regulation is concerned, the Commission considers that it contains the appropriate standards on data protection and access by the competent authorities to such data. Your rapporteur had the foresight to submit the proposal to the European Data Protection Supervisor, who gave a positive assessment. No problems were detected on data protection issues."@en1
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