Germany’s Social Democrats said that a trans-Atlantic free trade deal can’t be negotiated until measures are in place to stop the U.S. from spying on their European allies.
SPD lawmaker Thomas Oppermann convened an emergency meeting of the lower house panel charged with overseeing intelligence matters to discuss evidence that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone was monitored by U.S. spy agencies. He said the response to revelations of U.S. eavesdropping will be a central theme of the coalition deal his party is negotiating with Merkel’s bloc.
“Our fears have been confirmed,” Oppermann, the panel’s chairman and one of two SPD representatives on the five-person steering group for the coalition talks, told reporters in Berlin today before the meeting. “I can’t imagine any free trade agreement between Europe and the U.S. as long as this affair hasn’t been cleared up.”
German politicians from all parties have reacted with outrage to a report by Der Spiegel late yesterday that the U.S. National Security Agency may have been monitoring Merkel’s private mobile phone for years. A White House denial that the U.S. is listening in failed to stem the calls in Germany and elsewhere in Europe for action to ensure there is no repeat.
Germany summoned the U.S. ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to clarify the charge of U.S. eavesdropping as Merkel joined European Union leaders in Brussels, where the summit discussion of data protection took on new relevance.
‘Strong Signals’
“There are strong signals that my German colleague has been wire-tapped,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told reporters before the summit, saying that he found the charge “impossible, unthinkable and very serious.”
A decision today on possible action against the U.S. “is not foreseen,” he said. “We are now awaiting the investigation results and based on that, we will set the next steps.”
European Parliament President Martin Schulz, speaking at a meeting of European socialist leaders in Brussels, said that “this time an interruption is necessary” in U.S. trade talks.
“There are certain standards and criteria that have to be met, otherwise there’s no point in talking to each other,” said Schulz, a German SPD member.
For all the outcry, analysts agreed that the proposed free trade agreement probably won’t become a victim, least of all as a result of Germany.
EU Opposition
“The German government won’t let this seriously impact on talks for an EU-U.S. free trade deal,” Jan Techau, Carnegie Europe’s Brussels office director, said by phone. “Opposition is going to come more from the EU Commission and European Parliament, which is already seeking harsher measures on this.”
Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, said the fallout “isn’t going to seriously affect the EU-U.S. trade talks because most of the EU governments, especially Germany’s, are keen for a trade deal.”
Merkel, who won re-election on Sept. 22 for a third term leading Europe’s biggest economy, is the latest world leader to express outrage over allegations of U.S. eavesdropping. French President Francois Hollande also sought clarification this week over allegations of spying by the NSA.
Using unusually strong language, Merkel spoke to President Barack Obama and “made it clear that she unequivocally condemns such practices if the evidence should prove true, and sees it as completely unacceptable,” her chief spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said. “This would be a serious breach of trust,” Seibert said in an e-mailed statement, adding that “such practices must be stopped immediately.”
Obama’s Assurance
“The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters in Washington yesterday.
Ronald Pofalla, Merkel’s chief of staff, said that he had noted the U.S. denial failed to mention past activities and so the government will sift all previous statements made by the NSA. Speaking to reporters outside the panel meeting, he said the allegations, if true, put U.S. surveillance and the public statements of the NSA “in an entirely new light.”
The revelations “erode the sense of shared values and the idea that if things really go wrong, the Europeans can always rely on the Americans and vice-versa,” said Shada Islam, director of policy at the Friends of Europe policy-advisory group in Brussels. “This isn’t going to stall the trade talks, let alone bring them to a screeching halt” since “it’s more than just a trade deal. It’s about Western values and keeping them intact.”
