EU/USA agreement: processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program

The Council approved the text of a letter to be sent to the United States government, notifying it of the termination of the provisional application of an agreement on the processing and transfer of financial messaging data from the EU to the US for purposes of its terrorist finance tracking programme.

This follows the European Parliament's refusal to approve the agreement (see summary dated 11/02/2010).

The EU/US agreement on the processing and the transfer of financial messaging data was signed on 30 November 2009.

Following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009, the Council can only adopt a decision to conclude such an agreement after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.