Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are in a difficult situation regarding the decision which we now have to make after hearing the Council and the Commission. Just how difficult the situation is, you can see from two remarks made in the last three minutes. Mrs Klamt says that we all know that the United States of America engages in industrial espionage. The Commissioner has just explained to us that of course the United States does not engage in industrial espionage; they clarified this in writing only yesterday. So what is to be done, then? After everything we have been told at the hearing in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the indication is, of course, that we should continue with the strategy which, as Social Democrats, we have believed to be correct. In the Committee, there were accusations against the Council and the Commission to the effect that individual EU citizens were insufficiently protected against the interception and monitoring of communications, that the competitive disadvantages to which the Echelon system is exposing the European economy are not being combated sufficiently in the context of the Community law governing the EU institutions and that no adequate counter-strategies are being developed. We then said that we wanted to hear what the Council and the Commission had to say before deciding how to proceed further. I should like to say that what I have heard this morning from both institutions gives rise to more questions than answers. The Social Democratic Group will therefore do what it already decided to do weeks ago in the light of present knowledge. Bearing in mind the statements by both institutions, we shall make decisions next week on the following issues. (In fact, there are no two ways about it, we shall have to make these decisions.) Do we want a committee of inquiry? Do we want a non-permanent committee? Do we want an own-initiative report? Do we want to take other measures in order to shed more light on the outstanding issues, to obtain more answers and, above all, to examine whether Community law has been broken? Precisely how we go about this, we shall decide next week, but one thing I would state clearly here is that, if we continue to adopt what, as I see it, is a dilatory approach to the problem, as I heard outlined by our partner institutions this morning, we shall not do justice to the political problem, or to the political drama, behind the questions raised here. I do not know whether we were well advised to say that we wanted a committee of inquiry because, if such a committee were to be set up, its legal basis would have to be impeccably clarified. In this regard, too, there are still questions to be answered. I was therefore of the opinion that it was too early for a committee of inquiry. I do not, however, want to exclude the possibility of our reaching conclusions in the course of the debate which will lead our Social Democrats to say, here in Parliament, that, even if there is the merest hint of suspicion that Community law has been broken and that citizens’ freedoms and the competitiveness of our industry and economy are not being adequately protected, then we shall act most decisively.

Political group: PSE