At a meeting of Parliament's group leaders today in Brussels, it was noted that no reply has yet been received from the Council following December's letter from President Buzek to the Swedish and Spanish EU Presidencies concerning the proposed agreement on SWIFT data transfers to the US.

In order for Parliament to be in a position to give its consent or not, it had laid down two clear conditions, namely that Parliament is granted full access to information related to this interim agreement and that its concerns are fully reflected in the negotiating mandate for the longer term agreement required once the interim agreement expires at the end of October.

Guy Verhofstadt indicated that all group leaders were of the same view and that further delay by Council in responding could result in Parliament rejecting the agreement altogether.

The matter is on Parliament's plenary agenda for discussion next Wednesday in Strasbourg. 

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For more information, please contact:

Neil Corlett: +32-2-284 20 77 or +32-478-78 22 84

e-mail: neil.corlett@europarl.europa.eu