In terror fight, eu and u.S. To share personal data

COPENHAGEN: The United States and the European Union agreed Friday to start sharing personal information, such as phone calls and bank accounts, about suspected terrorists and other serious criminal cases.

“There are global networks of terrorism that we must fight,” said Juergen Storbeck, head of Europol, the European police agency, who signed for the 15-member European Union. “If you fight these networks separately in the United States and in Europe, you will fail.”

The agreement, forged amid stronger efforts to coordinate counterterrorism after Sept.11 hijack attacks, will make trans-Atlantic cooperation a regular occurrence instead of “from time to time” as it was in the past, Storbeck said.

The Danish justice minister, Lene Espersen, who led negotiations with Washington over the past six months, said the Americans allayed European fears that material shared under the agreement could be misused.

The agreement has long been delayed by European insistence on guarantees that suspects extradited to the United States would not face the death penalty. EU nations have abolished capital punishment, which is legal in the United States.

Espersen, who declined to give details of the accord, said a final U.S.-EU agreement to make extradition of serious crime suspects to the United States should be expected in the spring.

She stressed that any extradition agreement would respect EU human rights regulations and let EU nations oppose extradition if capital punishment was possible.

THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, Dec. 21-22, 2002