AFP
German Chancellor Angela Merkel talks at a joint press conference in Brussels on Thursday.
While
at the EU summit in Brussels, German Chancellor Merkel has been forced
to perform a diplomatic balancing act. She must express the appropriate
amount of indignation over allegations she was spied on by the US, but
she must also avoid alienating her important allies.
ANZEIGE
The chancellor must appear outraged enough to reflect German and European outrage over the allegations, yet she must also avoid publicly denouncing Berlin's most important ally, the United States.
Her nonchalant reference to which of her mobile phones might be under surveillance by US intelligence agencies (a phone registered to her conservative Christian Democratic Party) is just one facet of this delicate diplomacy. EU member states have expressed their "mutual concern" over the US' activities and their trust has been shaken, she said. But, Merkel added, this trust must be quickly rebuilt because Europe and the US are allies, after all.
Regardless, rules and respect also apply to intelligence agencies, Merkel said sternly. As such, she and French President François Hollande plan to hold bilateral talks with the US to create parameters for intelligence work on behalf of the EU.
Verbal Pirouettes
The chancellor will hear nothing of ruling out the creation of free-trade agreement with the US in protest of the spying, as some have suggested. "Those who walk away must have an idea of how they plan to return," she said, adding that perhaps now the negotiations are more important than ever.
And the chancellor's verbal pirouettes continued with this statement: "Transatlantic friendship is not a one-way street," she said. "The Americans need friends too."
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Angela Merkel: NSA spying on allies is not on
EU summit confronts US surveillance scandal after claims that Merkel mobile was tapped and French calls were intercepted
The spiralling scandal over mass US surveillance of digital communications has moved to the top of European politics for the first time , with the EU's two key leaders, Angela Merkel and François Hollande, seeking a joint response to the spying claims.
With Germany and France reeling from allegations this week that the US National Security Agency tapped Merkel's mobile phone and intercepted the calls and text messages of millions in France, an EU summit in Brussels was forced to grapple with the issue on Thursday.
The Germans made plain that they were unhappy with the White House response to the tapping allegations following a 20-minute phone call between Merkel and Barack Obama on Wednesday.
"Spying on friends is not on at all," Merkel said going into the summit in her first public comment on the row.
In Berlin, the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, summoned the new US ambassador, John Emerson, to demand answers. The foreign ministry said German views would be presented "in no uncertain terms".
After seeing the ambassador, Westerwelle said: "We need the truth now".
Merkel's chief of staff, Ronald Pofalla, who is responsible for overseeing the German intelligence services, signalled that Berlin had delivered an ultimatum to Washington.
He said Germany had insisted that it wanted answers to all questions still open, and a new "no spy agreement" between Berlin and Washington which would regulate intelligence co-operation and exclude mutual espionage. All information supplied by the NSA in recent months in response to the scandal was being reviewed.
Pofalla said a White House statement on Wednesday that Merkel's phone was not being tapped did not represent a denial that it had been tapped in the past. If the strong German suspicion was confirmed, he said, "it would shed new light on all the information from the NSA in recent weeks and recent months".
Merkel and Hollande met separately at the EU summit to discuss the issue. Senior French sources said they agreed to co-ordinate their responses to the US.
The EU came under strong pressure to act by fast-tracking draft rules regulating how digital data can be transferred between Europe and America, amd curbing the ability of big US internet providers and social media corporations to keep European data freely in America and make it available to the NSA.
France and the European commission led the push for new European legislation on data protection
by next spring, while Britain dragged its heels, arguing tjat it was
more important to get the complex legislation right than to rush it
through.
"The UK is leading the charge against it," a senior EU
official said. "The UK position is bewildering. They're trying to delay
it."A French paper prepared for the summit, and obtained by the Guardian, said the NSA's operation of the Prism programme, revealed in June, "brought to light the need to strengthen the rules ensuring the protection of the privacy of European citizens. An agreement needs to be achieved in October on the main provisions of the data protection package."
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EU Apathy: Leaders Fail to Make Progress at Summit
AP/dpa
From
left, Italian Prime Minister Letta, German Chancellor Merkel, European
Council President Van Rompuy and European Commission President Barroso
speak with each other during a round table meeting at an EU summit in
Brussels.
This
week's European Council summit was sidelined by new accusations of US
spying in Europe. But despite the distraction, it's clear EU leaders
have deferred plans for greater integration, and lack the political will
to address pressing concerns like migration.
ANZEIGE
"The political and fiscal plans are basically off the table. There would need to be another major crisis to bring them back," says Zsolt Darvas, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank. Darvas suggests that a loss of market confidence in the highly-indebted Italian economy, the euro zone's third largest, could be the one wild card that would force the EU to refocus on fiscal coordination.
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TheGuardian
Published on Oct 25, 2013
Angela Merkel phone bugging: 'spying on friends is not acceptable'
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, responds to allegations the NSA had bugged her phone. She says her country's trust in the US must be rebuilt, meaning reconsidering their data privacy and transparency. Barack Obama has assured Merkel her phone is not currently, and will not in the future, be tapped
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, responds to allegations the NSA had bugged her phone. She says her country's trust in the US must be rebuilt, meaning reconsidering their data privacy and transparency. Barack Obama has assured Merkel her phone is not currently, and will not in the future, be tapped
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Merkel to seek 'no spy deal' within EU as well as with U.S.
A German government spokesman late on Friday confirmed Merkel had made such a proposal to European leaders gathered at a summit in Brussels. Sources who attended the meeting said they appeared to be open to the suggestion.
Charges that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) accessed tens of thousands of French phone records as well as monitored Merkel's phone have caused outrage in Europe. Germany said on Friday it will send its top intelligence chiefs to Washington next week to seek answers from the White House.
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