Brussels, 24/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - As a possible target of US National Security Agency (NSA) tapping, will Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel support accelerating the timetable for the reform of data protection rules? The provisional suspension of the SWIFT-Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) agreement on the transfer of bank data was called for by the European Parliament on Wednesday and by leader of the S&D Group, Hannes Swoboda. The question of whether Merkel would support the acceleration of the timetable arose on Thursday morning as the European summit got underway - a summit that will deal with the digital economy - after fresh revelations that Merkel's mobile could have been tapped by US intelligence services. This news, published by German weekly Der Spiegel, is of concern to Germany's federal government, which said on Wednesday 23 October that Merkel had spoken about this to US President Barack Obama on the telephone.
“The federal government has obtained information confirming that the Chancellor's mobile phone has been tapped by US services”, said a spokesperson for Merkel, Stefan Seibert, in a press release quoted by French news agency AFP. Obama says Merkel's phone is not being tapped but doubts about possible tapping in the past have not been totally dissipated.
On Monday, French daily newspaper Le Monde revealed that millions of the conversations of French citizens had been recorded by US services between December 2012 and January 2013. This news resulted in the US ambassador to France being called immediately to the French Foreign Office.
The outcome of this is that during the European summit, France would like this issue of spying and data protection to be discussed in more depth than originally planned, a source said on Monday. The idea would be to have real “political impetus” and consensus on the reform of European rules being completed as quickly as possible. European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Viviane Reding hopes that Paris will accept a reform for spring 2014. Provisional conclusions on this simply mention a reform and a solid framework for data protection for “next year”. A source says that there is, then, nothing at this stage that it will be done by next May, when the European elections will be held.
The UK, the Netherlands and Denmark are opposed to this timetable of “2014” and will do nothing to make the date more precise. “The content needs to be dealt with much more than the timetable”, says the Danish side. Germany still seems to be ambiguous, despite numerous statements - before the German elections that were held in September - about protecting Europeans. “We don't clearly know which side the country is on”, said a German source on Wednesday. According to Le Monde, France's President François Hollande and Merkel are due to meet on Thursday afternoon to discuss the NSA scandal. (SP/transl.fl)