The EU in German blogs (7): EU-US payment data exchange

Last Tuesday, the most important German blog Netzpolitik published a very critical article on the recent Council EU-US payment data exchange guidelines that - very simplified - would allow the US Treasury Department to continue to access bank transfer data of EU citizens in the fight against terrorism.

The decision is put in the context of the so-called Stockholm Programme, the EU's Justice and Home Affairs programme for 2010-14, which is also criticised by the author.

The article is a good example of well-done national reporting on EU politics, using hyperlinks to European and national sources, including Council Presidency press releases and original Commission proposals. This allows a wider audience to understand the whole story without going into all details within the article, thus leaving room for those of us who are interested in the details - just as I argued recently.

It is also putting the right attention to the EU-level dimension of the problem, while still linking it to the national debate.

If this would be the standard on EU reporting, we'd be much better off!

Also on this topic: Planet in Progress (ZEIT), Krüdewagen