Members of the European Parliament asked the European Commission yesterday (9 September) to determine whether recent allegations of US spying on SWIFT bank transfer information are true, and if so, whether this violates the 2010 SWIFT agreement between the European Union and the US.

The request was made by Liberal and Green MEPs. “It is now very clear that NSA has direct access to the SWIFT data, which is not foreseen in the SWIFT agreement,” said Belgian Liberal MEP Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the ALDE group, today. “The conclusion of the plenary session yesterday was to urge the commission to come forward with an opinion on whether the agreement should be suspended, yes or no, in the first October session.”

The Liberals attempted to officially put the issue on this week’s plenary agenda but this was rejected by the other groups. “This was not as controversial in my group as others, but it will be on the agenda for October,” said Joseph Daul, leader of the European People’s Party group.

Over the weekend the Washington Post reported that, based on leaked documents from former NSA worker Edward Snowden, it appears the US government has been monitoring SWIFT transactions.

The SWIFT agreement, adopted in 2010, gives agents from the US treasury department access to data on Europeans’ financial transactions. The intention was to monitor possible terrorist activity. However it did not foresee that the information would be available to US security agencies like the NSA.

“This SWIFT agreement was a huge fight in this legislature, we refused the first draft, we renegotiated the second draft,” said Verhofstadt. “What cannot be done is that we have these NSA revelations and we do nothing at all. That is what normally happens in Europe.”

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