Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, recently, when I had to explain the function of our Echelon Committee, I used the following example: I said, ‘Imagine you are a detective sergeant. Various people come to you and report a bombing, carried out by five terrorists. At the scene of the crime indicated there are two possible victims, but they say nothing. The five suspects are also silent. The explosive device is not immediately apparent and no details of the incident are known. In short, it is a rather difficult case. This is tantamount to what happened when journalists began to tell us that there was a global interception system called Echelon which was operated by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and which could intercept and analyse phone, fax and e-mail communications worldwide. Individuals, businesses and institutions, they said, were subjected to systematic surveillance. So what facts have we established after a year of investigation? As the detective sergeant, I would say that the five suspects were indeed at the scene of the crime, but the weapon was a precision rifle rather than a bomb. Each of the suspects was capable of firing the weapon, but all the evidence suggests that only one of them actually acted in a criminal manner. The victims have given us clues to help us in our investigations but are not prepared to testify in court, and so we unfortunately have insufficient evidence to secure a conviction. It will be essential, however, to keep the suspects under observation and to take further precautions.’ What this means is that the five aforementioned states do indeed cooperate within this espionage system. Its name is irrelevant, but let us call it Echelon for the sake of convenience. The system, however, can only intercept civilian communications that are routed via Intelsat satellites. And these satellites only carry a small percentage of global telecommunications traffic and an even smaller percentage of private telephone calls. Moreover, these activities by intelligence services were tolerated by the international community on condition that they were essential to the protection of national security interests. There are now indications, however, that the United States is using some of these intercepted data for purposes other than the preservation of national security. The US agencies have admitted, for example, that they eavesdrop on European companies bidding for major foreign contracts, allegedly because these companies engage in bribery. The agencies’ intelligence reports are then forwarded to US embassies so that the ambassador to the awarding country can influence the host government by making it aware of the bribery allegations. The US Department of Commerce also has an Advocacy Center, which maintains, through the US embassies, a worldwide network devoted solely to helping US corporations land major contracts. There are clear grounds for suspecting the United States of illegal industrial espionage. Regrettably, the companies that have been victims of these activities remain silent for fear of tarnishing their image. At this point I should like to thank the rapporteur and his team for resisting the attempts of the , as well as those from the of this chamber, to have him write a cloak-and-dagger thriller. His report is responsible and objective, presents the conclusive and presumptive evidence, distinguishing clearly between the two, and does not prejudge the issue. Some may feel that his conclusions do not go far enough, but they do exhaust the available legal options. Protection against illegal acts committed by non-European intelligence services can only be achieved through global instruments. As far as our own area of responsibility is concerned, the main priority for us is to close the confidentiality gaps in the Commission. Unlike the Council or the Central Bank, the Commission persists with data protection and confidentiality mechanisms that belong to the Middle Ages. The dangers posed by non-European countries in this domain have obviously been entirely underestimated. We therefore call on the competent committee to initiate its own report on this issue. We also call on our British friends, since they are fellow members of the European Union, to establish effective and legitimate control of American espionage conducted against European targets from British territory; otherwise they are in breach of European data protection law. Let me thank the rapporteur once again for his cooperation with us. I am sure that this report will carry the support of an overwhelming majority of the Members of this House. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE