The European Taxpayers’ Association is opposed to the SWIFT agreement.

On Thursday, the European Parliament will make a final decision on the controversial SWIFT agreement. This agreement provides for the monitoring of all bank transactions carried out by EU citizens in order to prevent potential terrorist financing.

The European Taxpayers’ Association (TAE) is calling for the SWIFT agreement to be rejected. Such an agreement would constitute a massive intrusion into the privacy of EU citizens and offers no protection against the misuse of commercial banking data, as President Rolf von Hohenhau explained. The possibility of data being passed on to third parties is not legitimised by either data protection principles or democratic principles.

The European Taxpayers’ Association therefore welcomes the recommendation by the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs to reject the SWIFT agreement in its entirety.

The European Taxpayers’ Association calls on the European Parliament to vote against the SWIFT agreement. Should MEPs vote against the SWIFT agreement, the Council would be obliged to suspend its implementation immediately. Even experts admit that there is no shortage of data for combating terrorism, but that the existing information needs to be analysed more effectively, according to the President of the European Taxpayers’ Association.

Munich/Brussels, 10 February 2010