• Home /
• News /
• 2007 /
• April /
• EU-US: EU state & US government agreement on the exchange of classified information

EU-US: EU state & US government agreement on the exchange of classified information

01 April 2007

EU-US agreement: full-text, pdf and Approval of Decision, 30 March 2007 (pdf) The agreement is being concluded in accordance with Articles 24 and 38 of the Treaty on the European union (TEU), national and European parliaments are not consulted.It will be signed by the Council Presidency, the Secretary-General of the Council and the Commission. The agreement covers not just the exchange of classified documents by the Council Security Committee (CSG) and for defence and foreign policy but also for justice and home affairs. It also covers private contractors.

The US "signalled" their agreement to the text on 23 March 2007. However, prior to this the EU was putting its "house in order". First, on the military front it "prolonged" the approvals of "temporary" cryptographic devices to communicate with NATO and SHAPE as as EU "approved" devices "could yet not be used" EU-NATO-links (EU doc no: 6289/07). Second, and more surprisingly, it was only in January 2007 that the CSG approved the general use of "the UK line encryptor THAMER" up to and including SECRET EU: Encryption programme up to and including SECRET EU (EU doc no: 5645/07, pdf). THAMER (link to their brochure) is approved by the UK government, is used by NATO (since 2004) and is: "constructed in such a way that tampering is evident if it has occurred" - could it be that a gap had existed in the EU's encryption defences which had to be plugged?

Third country agreements (pdf) This document sets out the level of classified documents that may be given to five groups of countries under specific agreements. EU-NATO unclassified information On the other hand, when it comes to "NATO UNCLASSIFIED" within the EU they must be classified and only distributed on a "need-to-know" basis.