FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
France and Germany Piqued Over Spying Scandal
By STEPHEN CASTLE and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: July 1, 2013
LONDON — The leaders of France and Germany added their voices on Monday to the growing outrage over reports that the United States has been spying on its European Union allies, raising new suggestions that talks on a new trans-Atlantic trade agreement may be at risk.
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President François Hollande of France issued some of the harshest language from a European leader, telling reporters during a visit in northwestern France that “we cannot accept this kind of behavior between partners and allies.” He said the spying should “immediately stop.”
In Berlin, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Steffen Seibert, echoed Mr. Hollande’s anger over the eavesdropping. “We’re not in the cold war anymore,” he told reporters.
Mr. Hollande hinted that talks on a new trans-Atlantic trade pact, scheduled to start next week, should be delayed until questions over the spying issue were resolved. “We can only have negotiations, transactions, in all areas once we have obtained these guarantees for France, but that goes for the whole European Union, and I would say for all partners of the United States,” he said, according to a translation of his remarks reported by The Associated Press.
The anger overshadowed efforts by Secretary of State John Kerry to play down concerns about American surveillance, telling reporters at a conference of Southeast Asian nations in Brunei on Monday that “every country in the world” involved in international affairs engages in activities to protect its national security.
The latest accusations surfaced in the online edition of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, which reported on Saturday that American agencies had monitored the offices of the European Union in New York and Washington. Der Spiegel said information about the spying appeared in documents that were obtained by Edward J. Snowden, the former American intelligence contractor, and were seen in part by the magazine.
On Sunday, the online edition of The Guardian in Britain reported additional detailsabout the surveillance program. The newspaper said that one document it had obtained listed 38 embassies and diplomatic missions in Washington and New York, describing them as “targets.” It detailed a broad range of spying methods used against one, including bugs implanted in electronic communications gear and the collection of transmissions using specialized antennas.
The list of targets included the European Union’s missions and the French, Italian and Greek Embassies, as well as those of several other American allies, including India, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Turkey, The Guardian reported.
The reports came at a time when there was already considerable tension between the United States and its European allies over Mr. Snowden’s earlier revelations of apparent American spying on officials of allied governments and the gathering of data on electronic communications by millions of people around the world.
In the latest accusations, the documents seen by The Guardian suggest that the intent of the eavesdropping against the union’s office in Washington was to gather inside knowledge of policy differences on global issues and other potential disagreements among member countries, the newspaper said. Catherine Ashton, the union’s top foreign policy official, said in a written statement on Sunday that the union was seeking “urgent clarification of the veracity of and facts surrounding these allegations.”
The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, said in a statement that he was “deeply worried and shocked.” He added, “If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter, which will have a severe impact on E.U.-U.S. relations.”
The United States and the European Union are scheduled to complete talks on the trans-Atlantic trade agreement by November 2014. Those talks are threatened by the spying accusations, according to Viviane Reding, the European Union’s commissioner for justice.
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