‘The EU can pound on the table, the US is not impressed’

"The European Parliament could, [on October 23,] give the strongest response yet by a European institution to illegal surveillance" carried out by the US intelligence services, says Dutch daily Trouw.

After adopting a draft proposal on Internet data protection on October 22, MEPs are expected to vote to suspend the exchange of banking data with the United States, as defined by the SWIFT Treaty.

This is in retaliation to the violation by Washington of the treaty, which stipulates that data mining of banking information can only concern persons suspected of terrorism. Trouw notes, however, that these are —

but small steps that will cause no sleepless nights in the US. Even if the parliament votes to suspend SWIFT, only the European Commission can in fact propose such a measure.