Claude Moraes, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Mr President, in the context of our group’s rejection of the interim TFTP Agreement, we welcome the decision by the Spanish Presidency and the US to reopen negotiations to take on board key data protection safeguards for all EU citizens.

Today, our group can support the Alvaro report, not because it represents the perfect agreement, but because it contains the key protections we would all expect to see in an international data sharing deal of this importance – as Mr Strasser said, in this milestone event. It signals the Parliament’s ability, post-Lisbon, to represent the interests of all EU citizens in its dealings with the Council, Commission and third countries. It is a new start, as Mrs Malmström said.

On the central point, the transfer of bulk data of EU citizens, we have successfully brokered the so-called twin-track approach, combining strict safeguards, such as the EU appointment of EU staff in the US Treasury, with a concrete timetable leading the way to a European solution for the extraction of data on EU soil.

This agreement is about the serious balance between fighting terrorism and protecting the freedoms of our citizens. Tomorrow in my constituency of London, we celebrate the anniversary of the 7/7 bombing. We all know what this agreement is about, but balance is critical. In any negotiation, there must be give and take, but my group believes that EU citizens can feel that their Parliament, working with an effective Presidency, secured many of the safeguards they expect and an agreement which would infinitely outstrip the negative potential of 27 bilateral agreements. Bilateral agreements may not contain elements such as judicial redress on a non-discriminatory basis, rectification and erasure and a prohibition on data mining and profiling. Better an EU deal with real safeguards than bilateral agreements with unknown consequences.

For all of these reasons, our group will support this renegotiated deal and proudly stand by the safeguards we have helped to secure with the rapporteur and all of the other groups on behalf of EU citizens and their freedoms.