Members of the European parliament have overwhelmingly backed draft rules on data privacy in the first concrete EU response to the revelations of mass digital surveillance by the Americans and the British. The new regime would curb the transfer of personal data to US corporations.

In a vote on Monday evening, MEPs on the parliament's civil liberties and justice committee supported the draft new regime, which will form a framework for further negotiations with the 28 governments of EU member states.

The legislation has been gridlocked for almost two years following US pressure to dilute the package.

Disclosures by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden about mass digital surveillance in Europe by the Americans and the British have changed the political climate on data privacy, lending greater urgency to attempts to frame new EU rules.

"The vote is a breakthrough for data protection rules in Europe, ensuring that they are up to the challenges of the digital age," said Jan Philipp Albrecht, the German Green MEP steering the legislation through the parliament in Strasbourg. "This legislation introduces overarching EU rules on data protection, replacing the current patchwork of national laws."

British Conservative party sources denied accusations by EU diplomats that they were seeking to filibuster on the vote. The government has a keen interest in the proposed legislation, not least since Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is viewed as a partner of the US's National Security Agency (NSA) in the mass digital surveillance operations disclosed by Snowden.

Parts of the draft rules tightly regulating the transfer of data from Europe to America, dropped previously under intense US lobbying, have been reintroduced to proscribe the practice unless explicitly allowed.

US companies providing data services in Europe but not based there would need to obtain special permission before they could transfer information to, and store it in, the US, where it may be tapped by the NSA. They would face swingeing fines if found to be in breach.

The draft supported by MEPs on Monday forms the basis for further negotiation with the 28 EU governments and the European commission, meaning it is likely to be altered substantially before coming into force.

The aim is to have the new regime agreed by next spring and in force by 2016, but that looks unlikely. The 28 governments are still trying to reach a common negotiating position.

The proposals have been described as the most intensely lobbied piece of legislation in the EU and the pressure from politicians, security services, internet companies, e-commerce, and media associations will now get stronger as the various parties seek to reach a consensus.

Tension between Paris and Washington over claims that the NSA engaged in widespread phone and internet surveillance of French citizens persisted on Tuesday after Le Monde detailed US methods of spying on French diplomats in Washington and at the UN in New York.

In a second day of stories based on disclosures by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the French daily said NSA internal memos detailed "the wholesale use of cookies by the NSA to spy on French diplomatic interests at the UN and in Washington".

The paper said that a two-page, top secret, internal NSA memo dated 10 September 2010 referred to the surveillance of the French embassy in Washington under the codename Wabash and the surveillance of the French delegation to the UN under the code name Blackfoot. In June, the Guardian revealed how the US intelligence services had targeted European diplomatic missions under a series of codenames.

Le Monde said: "The document specifies the techniques used to spy on the communications of the French diplomats: Highlands for pirating computers using remotely delivered cookies; Vagrant for capturing information from screens; and finally PBX, which is the equivalent of eavesdropping on the discussion of the French diplomatic service as if one was participating in a conference call."

The paper said a document dated August 2010 showed that "confidential information thus stolen from foreign chanceries, and in particular from France", played a major role in obtaining the vote, on 9 June 2010, on a UN resolution imposing new sanctions on Iran for not respecting obligations over its nuclear programme.

This espionage operation was described in the NSA memo as a "silent success" which helped "to shape US foreign policy".

Le Monde said that to vaunt its merits, the intelligence agency even quoted the American ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, about the work carried out on this occasion by the NSA: "Helped me to know … the truth … revealed their real position on sanctions … gave us an upper hand in the negotiations …"