Strasbourg, 05/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - In adopting the report by German Social-Democrat Gerhard Schmid by 367 to 159 with 34 abstentions, the European Parliament endorsed all the conclusions and recommendations made by the Temporary Echelon Committee. It also rejected all of the GUE/NGL, Greens/ELA, DDE and UEN groups' amendments, bar two. The EP is calling on Member States to guarantee all their citizens the same high level of protection against the interception of their messages and highlights the need to draw up more appropriate common standards to meet the requirements of the basic rights to privacy of the EU's citizens, which go further than those guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Member States are being invited to pool their message interception resources in order to make the Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP) more effective in terms of surveillance and fighting terrorism and crime, under the control of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission. Germany and the UK have been invited to put certain conditions on the interception on their territory of messages by the US surveillance services. The EP is also calling for measures to be taken to develop new encryption software and make individuals and companies aware of the potential risks of using modern technology, providing them with appropriate information about how to protect their messages.
The in-depth year-long enquiry leaves "no shadow of a doubt" about the existence of a message surveillance system set up by the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, explained the rapporteur during the debate. He commented that the system was partly set up by chance and partly for historical reasons going back as far as the Second World War. The EP's Temporary Committee did not find any concrete proof that the system had been used for industrial espionage purposes (see the summary of the report in EUROPE of 6 July, p.14). The report calls on the United States to enter dialogue with Europe on the subject of industrial espionage. The rapporteur said that their behaviour had been "unfriendly". He felt that the verdict to be given on systems like ECHELON depended on a number of criteria such as what use was made of the intercepted data, and the aims of the surveillance - fighting crime, human trafficking and drugs trafficking or pure industrial espionage? Mr Schmid said that in all cases, surveillance should only be used as a last resort once all other possibilities had been exhausted.
On behalf of the Belgian Presidency, Annemie Neyts pointed out that the 29 May 2000 Justice and Internal Affairs Council had stressed that a message surveillance system could not be used to gain economic advantage, in any case. The Presidency defends the idea that there cannot be surveillance without legitimate reason and control, and intends to focus on the security of networks and information, although it also wants to make progress in the setting up of a warning and information system about the risks inherent in using computer technology, she explained, adding that the Presidency hoped the 15 October Telecommunications Council would be able to draw up common guidelines for this and that the December Telecommunications Council would draw up a detailed action plan and an e-security calendar.
The Temporary Committee had done excellent work, according to German Christian Democrat Christian von Boetticher, resisting the temptation from the Greens and others to make a to-do about the whole affair. Dutch Socialist Jan Wiersma insisted that the EU had to help develop reliable encryption methods to ensure the privacy of data. Luxembourg conservative Colette Flesch argued that proposing to scrap surveillance services was a pipe-dream. She felt that sooner or later the EU would have to have its own surveillance capabilities under Parliamentary control. Irish Green MEP Patricia McKenna said the report was extremely hypocritical since it criticised ECHELON while proposing that the EU set up its own surveillance system. She felt that the EP should at least ask the UK to close down the ECHELON surveillance station on its territory. Giuseppe Di Lello (Rifondazione Comunista) argued that the UK could not both be a member of the EU and be part of ECHELON at the same time. The report had highlighted a US espionage system and the complicity of two Member States, according to Jean-Charles Marchiani (Union for Europe of the Nations, France), who regretted that solidarity with the other side of the Atlantic was more important than solidarity with Europe. Italian Radical Maurizio Turco called for rules to ensure a high level of protection of individuals' privacy, along with legal and parliamentary control of interception activity.
Commissioner Erkki Liikanen stated that the European Commission attached great importance to respecting fundamental rights, but that it also had to abide by the limits set on its powers which did not cover surveillance activities for security purposes. Collecting information in order to achieve a competitive advantage, on the other hand, is covered by EU legislation on the protection of personal data. Mr Liikanen hoped that the EP would support European research in this area when it adopted the 6th Framework Programme and he gave assurances that the European Commission ensured its own messages were secure, pointing out that some measures had recently been taken in this connection.
The ELDR group, the vast majority of the PES and the EPP-ED, the French hunters and 7 Green/EFA MEPs voted for the report. The GUE/NGL and UEN groups, along with most of the TDI and Greens/EFA groups, the British Conservatives and the British Socialist MEP David Martin voted against. Those who abstained include the Italian PES MEPs and the French EPP MEPs.