Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-23-Speech-1-092"
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"en.20070423.16.1-092"2
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".
Mr President, I have listened carefully to the discussion on the proposal for a directive on payment services in the Internal Market and I would like to thank you all for your comments.
We cannot establish a single market for payments without a harmonised legal framework at EU level instead of the patchwork of 27 sets of different national rules. At the same time we need more competition and innovation in payments markets. This will provide substantial benefits to our citizens, our businesses, our public administrations and our economy as a whole. Quite simply, payments are the lifeblood of our economy and without an efficient payments system we cannot have an efficient single market.
The issue regarding data protection was raised by the following Members: Mr Gauzès, Mrs Bowles and Mrs Berès. I would like to say two things on this issue. Firstly, the Commission has already responded to Parliament’s resolution of 14 February 2007 on the SWIFT case. Article 19 of the proposed directive allows the exchange of information between competent authorities responsible for protecting personal data and the authority responsible for supervising payment institutions. This corresponds to the conclusions of the Article 29 working party opinion of 22 November 2006 on the processing of data by SWIFT.
Secondly, the limitation of data processing to EU countries, as proposed by Amendment 287, would in fact be a contradiction of the data protection directive. That directive has a specific regime for authorising the export of data to third countries if those countries provide the necessary guarantees. This regime aims at ensuring that European data protection standards are not undermined by the export of data to countries with more lenient standards.
The SWIFT case has demonstrated that we must remain vigilant on the protection of personal data. Combating terrorism and terrorist financing are important. So is the protection of privacy, however, which is a fundamental principle for all EU Member States. The Commission will use all means at its disposal to ensure that all Member States respect data protection, including the export of data to third countries. I will bring the points made here to the attention of my colleague, Commissioner Frattini, who is directly responsible for this area.
Tomorrow Parliament has the opportunity to endorse the proposal which reflects the views already expressed in its lead committee’s report, which provides a legal foundation for an efficient and modern payments market. The Commission fully supports a set of compromise amendments aimed at achieving this. I would once again like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Gauzès, and Parliament for your patience in deferring this vote. I stress his conviction that your vote is a historic occasion for payments in Europe."@en1
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