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VERA JOUROVA, justice, consumers and gender equality European Union commissioner-designate, has told the EU that the current Safe Harbour agreement with the US is hanging in the balance.

Jourova said that a suspension of the arrangement is a distinct possibility, according to a report on Reuters that has access to her written answers.

"Suspension is certainly an option on the table for me," she said. "But we are not yet there."

The Safe Harbour arrangement has been around since the start of this century and is designed to provide securities for people whose data may be moving between territories.

This is OK locally, but since PRISM and all that Europeans have struggled to trust the US, its companies, its security policies and its government. The EU has asked the US to keep its national security data requests to a fair and not too intrusive minimum.

"Allow me to give this another push and to continue working in a constructive spirit with the US building on the progress made so far, while insisting that a higher level of ambition is shown and must materialise in practice," added Jourova in her answers.

According to a separate report on the Euractiv news site, Jourova is not the only person to be making such noises.

The report says that the commissioner-designate for the Digital Internal Market, Andrus Ansip, who has wide support in the European Parliament, wants tighter controls on data sharing, and a lot more trust in the US.

"As a liberal, I believe in personal rights. We must protect everyone's privacy. Data protection will be an important cornerstone of the Digital Internal Market. The citizens must have trust in this project," he said.

"Safe Harbour is not secure. The agreement has yet to live up to its name. If the US government does not make a clear statement, we must consider suspending the agreement."

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European Union may halt the US Safe Harbour deal