Legal affairs

Better protection for victims of crime, and especially of domestic crime, the fight against human trafficking, sexual exploitation and child pornography, reinforced legal co-operation among Member States and better access to justice for citizens are Belgium's key legal affairs priorities as set out by Justice Minister Stefaan De Clerck.

To take account of greater mobility in Europe, laws on cross-border divorce (Rome III) and on succession and wills are also high on the Belgian Presidency's agenda. Mr De Clerck also looked forward to making progress on mutual recognition of judicial decisions, cross-border judicial and police co-operation, a European investigation order, and reinforcing the powers of Eurojust. Finally, the Presidency also aims to "find some solutions to get the ball rolling" on the Statute for a European Private Company.

Single market

For the single market, a European patent is the key priority, said Enterprise and Simplification Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne."80% of my energy will be invested in the European patent", the minister told MEPs. The first step for this patent is the language regime, presented last week by the Commission. Consumers' rights, the late payments directive - on which the Belgian Presidency hopes to reach a first reading agreement with Parliament - and copyright will also be major issues during the Belgian Presidency, he concluded.

Parliament should approve the reworked EU-USA SWIFT bank data transfer agreement this week, said the Civil Liberties Committee on Monday. MEPs rejected the previous agreement four months ago, but have since negotiated certain safeguards with the Council and the US Treasury Department, and won an undertaking that the EU will develop a system that precludes the need to transfer data in bulk to the USA.

The recommendation that Parliament as a whole authorise the conclusion of SWIFT II was drafted by Alexander Alvaro (ALDE, DE), and approved in committee with 41 votes in favour, 9 against and 1 abstention. If Parliament backs it in plenary on Thursday at noon, the agreement will come into force on 1 August.

The key to the deal for the European Parliament is the eventual elimination of "bulk" data transfers. In exchange for backing the agreement, MEPs won an undertaking that work on setting up an EU equivalent to the US "Terrorism Finance Tracking Program" (TFTP), which would preclude the need for bulk data transfers, will start within 12 months. Once Europe has a system enabling it to analyse data on its own territory, it need only transfer data relating to a specific terrorist track.

afew: (26 June 2010)

The European Union's member states have accepted demands by MEPs to amend a draft data-sharing agreement with the United States that has already been initialled. The changes to the so-called SWIFT agreement, named after the company that communicates data on electronic banking transfers, concern how the EU oversees data extraction by US officials working on the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP). The proposed changes have been communicated to the Americans and are not expected to be particularly controversial.

The European Parliament looks set to give the green light to a controversial deal governing the sharing of bank data between the EU and the US after securing guarantees on privacy - concessions Washington said had been "difficult."

The signing in Brussels today (28 June) was made possible after Spain, the current holder of the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers, accepted demands from MEPs for changes to the text. The changes, which were accepted by the US, pave the way for the European Parliament to approve the agreement at its last plenary before the summer break, in Strasbourg next week. EU member states gave their written consent today.