Top German MEP outraged over NSA espionage

The CDU’s Elmar Brok says: “respect rules”.

German MEP Elmar Brok, chairman of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, has not shied away from expressing his anger over the latest allegations of US espionage in Europe.

“This is an amount of brashness that is hard to overbid,” Brok told POLITICO in reaction to the latest revelations in German media, charges that the National Security Agency (NSA) misused a cooperation agreement with the German intelligence service BND to spy on European politicians and companies.

The key allegation is that the NSA secretly placed the EU Commission, the French government and companies such as Airbus on a target list of the BND’s monitoring base in Bad Aibling, Bavaria. Germany cooperates closely with the USA and exchanges data on the basis of an arrangement concluded in 2002, shortly after the terror attacks in September 2001.

But the idea of this cooperation, to the Germans’ understanding, was not to spy on EU partners.

It was years later, in 2006, that the BND first spotted signs of the suspicious activities by its American ally, and then in 2008 it send an official warning letter to the German government, the weekly ‘Bild am Sonntag‘ reported.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that spying on allies would be something that “should not happen.”

Burden for transatlantic relations

Brok, who is a member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and meets her frequently, was less serene: “This is an obvious burden for the EU-US relations,” Brok said. “One needs to say that the mistrust will grow further if the Americans continue this way. It would be very helpful if all partners would respect certain rules.”

Brok also slammed the BND, referring repeatedly to the “stupidity of our own services” in this affair.

He also expressed the concern that the alleged snooping on the European Commission and French government officials might not be the end of the NSA spy revelations: “Maybe the Parliament as well,” Brok said.

Turmoil in the German government

Meanwhile in Berlin, the espionage affair increasingly strains the political climate between the two coalition partners in government, Merkel’s CDU and the Social Democrats (SPD), whose party leader Sigmar Gabriel is also vice chancellor.

On Monday, Gabriel began distancing himself from Merkel by speaking of “a scandal that has to potential to trigger a severe shock.”

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On Thursday, an investigation committee of the German parliament will examine witnesses of the espionage affair, possibly even the president of the German intelligence service, Gerhard Schindler. The committee was set up after the first so-called ‘NSA scandal,’ which was promoted in 2013 by the revelations of the American whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In this regard, Germany follows the recommendation of Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, who said last week that the affair needs “to be sorted out by the German Parliament.”

Kalina Oroschakoff contributed to this story.