EU still seeking proof of US snooping

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union is seeking proof of alleged US snooping on the SWIFT global banking system but has found no evidence to date, the bloc's Home Affairs chief Cecilia Malmstroem said Tuesday.

The allegations "need to be clarified", Malmstroem told a European Parliament committee.

She added that proof of US National Security Agency snooping on the interbank network would be considered a breach of the EU-US Terrorist Financing Tracking Program (TFTP) accord struck in 2010 which allows access to SWIFT banking data.

But SWIFT's legal counsel Blanche Petre and Europol chief Rob Wainwright said no evidence had been found to date of unauthorised access to the Belgium-based network or its data.

Petre said 10 central banks, including the European Central Bank, oversee the network's complex security system of firewalls and encrypted messages.

Wainwright said his services had not been informed of any intelligence breaches in the SWIFT system but that Europol could not carry out its own inquiry without being given a mandate by one or another EU state.

Dutch MEP Sophie in't Veld said she considered the "EU-US agreement is effectively dead" given that the US had not denied the allegations of hacking into SWIFT servers.

But Malmstroem said reneging on the TFTP anti-terrorist agreement would require unanimous backing from all 28 EU states.

The Commissioner, who earlier this month said she had "conveyed strong concerns about alleged NSA tapping" to her US counterparts, said she was "not satisfied" by Washginton's response.

Brussels warned Washington in July after reports of US spying on its allies that it was ready "to reconsider" two key anti-terrorist data-sharing deals failing US assurances of their "full compliance with the law".

The warnings over a hard-won EU-US agreement to share airline passenger data and SWIFT banking details as part of the global fight against terrorism, came amid public outrage over reports that US agencies spied on Europeans as well as on their institutions and embassies.

SWIFT is a provider of secure financial messaging services to 10,000 banks and other financial institutions in most of the world's countries.