EU Overturns Agreement With US On Banking Data

Following the lead of the civil liberties committee which last week recommended dropping it (against the wishes of the US), qmaqdk writes "The EU parliament overturned the previous agreement with the US which allowed US intelligence agencies to access EU banking data."

Comments

Re:As a US Citizen all I can say is...

[OnlineAlias]

FYI, the Euro is tanking against the dollar right now, as investor's fear of a crash of the Euro due to the PIGS. And that is against an already heavily devalued dollar. Now would not be a good time to deny European banks access to the American market. Your plan would pretty much ensure the demise of the Euro as European countries end up pulling out of the Eurozone so they don't have to bail out the PIGS. If they don't figure out some way to devalue the Euro even further for the countries that are in deep trouble (Greece), people are going to have to start cleaning the crap off the walls....

Re:Cool, now nobody has to pay taxes.

[BitterOak]

Americans that want to avoid taxes, can now bank in Europe again. Soon the USA will follow suit and allow Europeans who do not wish to pay taxes to be shielded from Europe.

Nope. Sorry. This has nothing to do with sharing records for tax collection. This agreement allowed intelligence agencies in the U.S. to secretly access banking information for all customers, including non-U.S. citizens. The tax data sharing agreements are separate and above board and require the bank to supply data only on those required to pay income tax in the U.S. (or whichever country they share with). Virtually all countries participate in tax data sharing now, so I'm afraid you can't get out of paying your taxes simply by banking in Europe.

Re:Cool, now nobody has to pay taxes.

[horza]

The Americans tax their citizens on their world-wide income, no matter where they live. The reverse isn't true. So why would a rich European want to hide in a high tax, high unemployment country with record gun crime and without a decent health care system? Though I may sound a little harsh on your system, you under-estimate your fellow Americans. My job is to sell luxury real estate to the wealthy, and I also arrange private banking in Monaco. Virtually none of my American clients are eager to avoid paying taxes.I won't name other nationalities, for fear of being accused of stereotyping, but I will say that in my experience Americans are in the very top percentile of honest tax payers. Though you may have problems with corporations, where every tax dodge is purely for the benefit of the shareholder, you should have more faith in your fellow citizens. Overall you can be proud of them.

Phillip.

parliament

[Tom]

The european government consists of two elements - the commission and the parliament.

What you need to know in short:

The commission is appointed, completely undemocratic, and holds most of the power and does most of the actual activity. It also bends over backwards whenever the US wants something. It was the commission who gave away our flight data, our personal data, our Internet data and now our banking data.

The parliament is elected, is the democratic body, and has very limited powers (though they have shifted around a bit with the last reform). It isn't exactly a mecca of reason, but it more often than not stops the worst excesses of the commission.

So once again, I applaud the parliament. They're fighting uphill battles against the commission all the time.

Re:parliament

[MemoryDragon]

Actually the european parliament since the Lissabon treaties now are in place is more powerful than ever, which is a good thing, since the parliament is very democratically elected and thanks to the sheer number of fractions things like fraction alignments like it happens in some local parliaments never can happen.
For some european countries now the EU parliament is the first parliament they have in history which really acts like a parliament and not like some whore following whatever the fraction alignment tells them to do just to stay on the payroll of someone.

I would say since the Lissabon treatys the EU is closer to democracy than some EU countries are, we have the comission which can be axed by the parliament and every, absolutely every law which needs to be passed down to the countries have to be ratified and can be axed by the parliament (before it had advisory status, they could axe but in the end there were enough other ways to push the gutter down)

The problem also never was the comission, the media just blew it out of proportion, in fact some parts of the comission really do an excellent job for instance the ones which handle the anti trust issues. Important things such as the Swift treaty mostly were carried on by the council of ministers, which is represented by ministers of the single countries, exactly those persons who voted yes in those gremia and then went home to their own countries blaming the EU for what again was passed down over the EU into the single countries. Speaking of lying the members of the council of ministers were the biggest liers and basically scapegoated the EU and Comission for everything they simply did themselves! I personally stopped blaming the comission for everything because most of the evil stuff simply came over the council of ministers down the last years (mostly the interior ministers which seem to have a habit of becoming assholes as soon as they are appointed, or have been the biggest ones before even being appointed)

Re:parliament

[Anonymous Coward]

The commission is appointed, completely undemocratic,

The commission is appointed by the governments of the member states, and has to be approved by the EU parliament. Just in the recent weeks, a new commission was formed, and one of the candidates appointed by the national governments needed to be replaced because it became apparent that there was too much resistance against her in the parliament (which doubted her competence). Not saying it is perfect, a big point for criticism for example is that the parliament (AFAIK, still) can only accept or reject the proposed commission as a whole.

It was the commission who gave away [...] now our banking data.

But they needed the unanimous agreement of the 27 national governments. The commission alone could not decide that. I completely agree though that it is good that the parliament (and thus democracy) is strengthened in the EU now.

Re:Oh, it's more sinister than that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, as I understand it, this one was more a case of I'll show you yours if you'll show me mine.

No. The agreement was unilateral. The US had no obligation to provide the EU with the same information, which was the main reason why it was overturned. At least, that's the main point according to news sources on our side of the Atlantic.

Re:Cool, now nobody has to pay taxes.

[zoney_ie]

Undemocratic? We got not one, but two votes on the Lisbon Treaty here in Ireland :)

In fairness, the Treaty was signed by people's elected governments (democracy - you vote in a government to run your country as they see fit), and in countries other than Ireland, was not in conflict with the constitution (despite scrutiny in a number of countries it was found not to be a problem). Even in Ireland, if the government had wanted to, they could have passed almost all of Lisbon without a constitutional amendment (the amendment was only necessary for certain items). As far as I know, the main difference with Ireland is that the constitution is very detailed, and a previous amendment pretty much meant all European treaties had to be appended by constitutional amendment.

Besides, direct democracy isn't very sensible - Switzerland is an example (or indeed the history of constitutional amendments in Ireland). The majority can hold up essential reform (like not letting women have the vote till late 60s/early 70s) or pass dubious votes (e.g. the minarets vote) where a government, despite having to keep an eye on what voters want, does have some freedom to enact unpopular measures that may nevertheless be needed.

Anyone who thought Lisbon was a bad idea should have come here to Ireland to see the appalling scaremongering tactics by the opponents (Lisbon will mean your foetuses aborted, your sons conscripted, the elderly euthanised) as well as negative campaigning (the unpopular ruling government want you to vote Yes, fat cats want the gravy train to continue, etc.). These are tactics that political parties have refrained from using in general elections etc. as they just lead to a vicious downward spiral. The proponents used standard political tactics based on generalisation of arguments (so "Vote Yes for Recovery", "Vote Yes for Jobs", etc.). These kind of tactics are acceptable enough and the public are familiar enough with them. You do have to sum up your arguments snappily on election posters. And all you need is some clever brainstorming to get your point across this way - no need to resort to dirty tactics.

Besides, as cynical as people are about politicians and the establishment - when *all* main political parties, opposition and government are speaking together - surely it should suggest that they may be right? Admittedly losing the first vote also showed they were incompetent.

Don't just vote, do something!

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

Having spent a few years as a lobbyist in the European Parliament during the EU software patents directive, I can tell you that it's very easy to affect the MEPs.

    I learned that they're mostly lost, and the centre-left guy will vote your way just as quickly as the centre-right guy will, so which one you voted for doesn't make a huge difference, but talking to them does. (FWIW, the best party in there is clearly the Greens.) Tell them your concerns and show them your evidence. Showing evidence is essential so they can justify their vote.

Re:Cool, now nobody has to pay taxes.

[TheRaven64]

That's not including the 25% value added tax which is slapped on everything I purchase

25% VAT? Where do you live in the EU then? VAT is 15% in most of the EU. Also, for a 'small business owner' you seem to completely fail to understand how VAT works. Value Added Tax is a tax on value added. You charge VAT on things that you sell, deduct from that the amount of VAT that you paid on things that you bought, and only pay the remainder to the government. If you're paying the full VAT amount on stuff that you're buying, then it means that you're not producing anything.

Re:Cool, now nobody has to pay taxes.

[geegel]

Small correction. The EU commission is named in the following way: The EU Parliament votes for the EU Commission chief (in this case Barroso), the chief assembles his team and after that the team must be validated by the Parliament again.

Re:Well done!

[Captain Hook]

Actually it's not quite as good of a decision as was being made out once you get past the headlines.

The decision in question was specific to a few paragraphs in a report which the UK government had said had to be censored because the US asked us to keep out of the public - so we did.

At some point, a report in the US publically quoted those paragraphs and so UK courts ruled that since the information was now in the public domain there was no reason not to publish the censored paragraphs ourselves

The decision did however go against the UK governments continued wish to keep the paragraphs censored since those paragraphs basically said the UK knew about and supported torture of a UK citizen.

[It was reported that a new series of interviews was conducted by the United States authorities prior to 17 May 2001 as part of a new strategy designed by an expert interviewer.

v) It was reported that at some stage during that further interview process by the United States authorities, BM had been intentionally subjected to continuous sleep deprivation. The effects of the sleep deprivation were carefully observed.

vi) It was reported that combined with the sleep deprivation, threats and inducements were made to him. His fears of being removed from United States custody and "disappearing" were played upon.

vii) It was reported that the stress brought about by these deliberate tactics was increased by him being shackled in his interviews

viii) It was clear not only from the reports of the content of the interviews but also from the report that he was being kept under self-harm observation, that the inter views were having a marked effect upon him and causing him significant mental stress and suffering.

ix) We regret to have to conclude that the reports provide to the SyS made clear to anyone reading them that BM was being subjected to the treatment that we have described and the effect upon him of that intentional treatment.

x) The treatment reported, if had been administered on behalf of the United Kingdom, would clearly have been in breach of the undertakings given by the United Kingdom in 1972. Although it is not necessary for us to categorise the treatment reported, it could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities]"

Source: FCO Website : http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=21733568