Brussels, 24/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - At the end of the parliamentary hearing on the protection of private life and in particular the Echelon affair (see pp.12/13 of this bulletin), the President of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine made the following Statement: "The hearing allowed for an updating of information and confirmed the gravity of the problem. One may legitimately feel scandalised that this espionage, which has gone on over several years, has not given rise to official protests. For the European Union, essential interests are at stake. On the one hand, it seems to have been established that there have been violations of the fundamental rights of its citizens, on the other, economic espionage may have had disastrous consequences, on employment for example.
Now, it is up to the political groups to decide what to do about the revelations of the hearing. The Council and Commission must be able to express themselves on the allegations put forward in the hearing. In addition, we shall have to see what the possible responsibility is of EU Member States or third States, as well as discuss means of countering the development of such a phenomenon with the aim of better protecting the private lives of EU citizens and companies.
On the occasion of his visit to the European Commission on Wednesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told journalists: "these things are governed by extremely strict rules, and these rules will always be applied". On the occasion of his meeting on Thursday with the President of the Commission, Italian Prime Minister Massimo d'Alema declared: "we are obviously interested in knowing all the responsibilities in detail. For now, one has to understand what actually happened. But it is obvious that a system of control and espionage like the one that has been discussed these past few days in Parliament is no compatible with the normal rules of co-existence between States". In Paris, Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou noted that the system had been misappropriated for purposes of economic espionage and to monitor rivals, and the Chair of the Parliamentary Defence Committee of the Assemblé Nationale, Paul Quiles, announced the creation of a committee of enquiry.