Sarah Ludford (ALDE), blue-card answer to Christian Engström. – What I want to achieve by working with our colleagues in the United States – with Congress, civil society, ACLU and all the other people who are batting for reform in the US – is for us to pursue reform in Europe and reform in the US. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that data in a European cloud is safe from interception and surveillance. A lot has been said about GCHQ in the UK, but I am afraid some of the continental security services are just as adept as the British ones. Please do not complacently assume that they are not.

So I do not think that we can assume that data is safe in any particular location. We have to work in Europe, and in the United States and globally, to increase the safeguards. I think we should allow businesses and citizens to put their data where they choose to and not say that it must be located in one place, as long as we can work to improve the safeguards, working transatlantically in particular.