The European Commission did not give much comfort, on Monday 12 September in Strasbourg, to MEPs who asked it to take strong action to prevent wiretapping practices organised in some Member States for national security reasons and which have led, as in Greece, to the phone-tapping of political opponents or journalists.
In a debate on Predator and more general spyware tapping practices, the Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, reiterated several times that these were matters to be dealt with at national level and that in the Predator case it was up to the competent Greek authorities to investigate.
However, the Commission says that it is keeping abreast of developments and has asked Greece to inform it of any new developments in the investigation - “and this is the case”, said the Commissioner - as the government of Kyriákos Mitsotákis is suspected of, among other things, tapping the phone of MEP Nikos Androulakis (S&D, Greek) when he was about to take over the leadership of the Greek Socialist Party.
The MEP, who was targeted by phone-tapping, spoke on Monday evening, thanking the European Parliament and its PEGA Committee of Inquiry into the Pegasus software for having “brought to light” the events in Greece. “Thanks to you, I discovered that I had been phone-tapped and that the intelligence services had started to monitor me”, he said. The intelligence services must respect democratic frameworks and cannot abuse their position”, he added, calling for the services to be held accountable.
For Commissioner Didier Reynders, while it is up to Member States to adopt adequate measures to ensure internal and external security, it is also necessary to prove that this security is compromised in order to organise wire-tapping and “a simple reference to a national security reason is not enough”, a judicial framework and democratic control being necessary.
But while the Commission can legitimately hold Athens to account for the interaction between Greek and EU law on privacy and confidentiality of communications, it has “no jurisdiction” over individual cases. Nor is it “in a position to assess” whether the use of a national security reason “is adequate” in the cases that have been brought to its attention, the Commissioner explained. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)