STRASBOURG (France), Dec 14: The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted new rules drawn up by the European Union to store phone and Internet data for up to two years to fight terrorism and other serious crime.

But some EU lawmakers criticised the assembly saying it had caved in to pressure from member states, and arguing that the new rules would allow authorities to do what they wanted with the data.

The parliament voted by 378 to 197 with 30 abstentions for a package already agreed between the assembly’s two biggest groups and member states, with European Commission backing.

“The European Parliament has sold itself cheaply,” said German liberal Democrat Alexander Alvaro, who sponsored the assembly’s version of the bill and whose recommendations were rejected in the vote.

“What we now have is that we have given the tools to government prosecutors to do what they want,” he added.

Earlier this month, Britain secured a deal among the EU’s 25 member states that would force telecommunications companies to store data for between six and 24 months.

The rules, proposed by the European Commission in September, are part of the EU’s response to attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London this year.

The version adopted on Wednesday is tougher than that recommended by the parliament’s civil liberties committee which wanted the data to be stored for one year.

The committee’s recommendation was by-passed by the deal struck between member states and the assembly’s right-wing European People’s Party and socialists.

COSTS: The new rules still need to be formally approved by EU member states.

Green members of parliament, who had called for the new rules to be scrapped, said the EU had failed to harmonise national rules to accommodate national interests.

“The aim of the proposal was to harmonise legislation but what we see now are big differences across the EU. Governments have managed to have legislation they could not pass on a national level,” said Kathalijne Buitenweg, Green party member.

But Conservative lawmakers hailed the approval as a key step forward in the fight against terrorism and organised crime.

“This legislation gives our security and law enforcement services significant additional tools to protect us from the unprecedented threat we now face,” said Timothy Kirkhope MEP, Conservative leader and justice and home affairs spokesman in the European Parliament.—Reuters