As espionage cases pile up, members of the European Parliament have expressed anger at the lack of follow-up to their spyware recommendations, with some of them supporting a second inquiry committee – ‘PEGA2’ – to scrutinise emerging cases and to keep pressuring the EU Commission into legislating.
A European Parliament special committee (PEGA) investigating spyware usage in Spain, Greece, Poland, Cyprus, and Hungary concluded its work in May 2023 with recommendations to the Commission on improving the current regulatory framework.
Four months later, the inaction of the Commission and its evasive reply to the Parliament’s recommendations have fed frustrations among MEPs, which expressed their concerns during a spyware hearing at the Parliament’s civil liberties (LIBE) committee on Thursday.
The most contentious issue in the Commission’s reply to PEGA committee, seen by Euractiv, is the ‘non-legislative’ nature of the proposed actions in response to the Parliament’s calls in May for common EU standards regulating the use of spyware by member state bodies.
“This is obviously not enough in our view,” Green MEP Saskia Bricmont told Euractiv. She also argues that – contrary to the written response – the Commission has plenty of competence to act, though “there is a lack of political will’.
The 15-page-long answer by the Commission, according to Renew MEP Sophie In’t Veld, “does not qualify as a response,” adding that “the commission is just saying: we’re not going to do anything.”
“They [European Commission] say it’s the responsibility of the national authorities to investigate [spyware cases]. The whole point is that the national national authorities are guilty of abuse,” she said.
Follow-up committee in the making?
The rapporteur for the first spyware recommendations issued by the EU Parliament, Sophie In’t Veld, proposes to set up a second committee of inquiry, ‘preferably’ before the EU elections in June, to keep investigating new developments and to keep pressuring the Commission to act, she said.
Following up on Thursday’s debate, ‘I’ll start talking about it with the others’, she added, arguing that “we all agree in the deep discontent with the lack of any action by the European Commission.”
Parliament vice-president Katarina Barley (S&D) also told Euractiv she supports a ‘PEGA2’ committee, as the Commission still needs “to submit a legislative proposal establishing a clear legal framework regarding spyware.”
“I would definitely support PEGA2,” Green MEP Saskia Bricmont told Euractiv, adding that if not a whole brand new committee, there is will among lawmakers to keep working on the issue.
“Let’s maybe push for a bigger tool in the first place, and if there’s no majority for that, then at least have some resources to keep working [on spyware] because I think there are many, many issues remaining,” she said.
There are dissenting voices, though, as Jeroen Leaners (EPP), chair of the PEGA committee, opposes the idea.
“We have worked for 1.5 years on our investigation, and our recommendations are crystal clear. The Commission should first take its responsibility to follow up on the work the Parliament delivered,” he told Euractiv, calling the inaction from the Member States and the Commission “truly deplorable.”
Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) chair Juan Fernandez López Aguilar (S&D) also stressed that the priority should be to implement PEGA’s recommendations.
To set up a second committee of inquiry following discussthe work of the PEGA committee, the Parliament requires one-quarter of MEPs in favour. There are precedents to such a move, as the Parliament created a second committee to keep discussing foreign interference in 2022 (ING2).
Spyware cases pile up
Such a committee is necessary because “there have been a lot of developments since the adoption of the spyware report,” In’t Veld said.
Most recently, on 9 October, Amnesty International made public that European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and French MEP Pierre Karleskind were targeted on Twitter by Vietnamese authorities with Greek firm Intellexa’s Predator software – along with 50 other individuals and institutions.
On 21 July, the Greek independent data protection authority announced that 92 people had been targeted via SMS to be infected with Greek firm Intellexa’s Predator spyware. The conservative government denies any involvement with Predator spyware and insists that it is aware only of surveillance under the legal channels of secret services.
On 13 September an investigation found out that journalist Galina Timchenko, head of a leading Russian independent media outlet based in Latvia, Meduza, had been infected with Pegasus spyware. Timchenko was one of the European Parliament guests for Thursday’s debate on spyware, after which MEP Sophie In’t Veld initiated a letter to Pegasus Israeli manufacturer NSO for information on the software buyers and usage.
Other developments also require follow-up at the EU level, MEPs say.
While the US blacklisted Greece’s Intellexa in July, the Polish senate declared ‘illegal and unlawful’ the purchase of Pegasus spyware by the Polish government.
At the same time, Spanish judicial authorities closed an investigation on the espionage against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez with Pegasus due to a lack of cooperation by Isarel’s authorities.
(Max Griera | Euractiv.com)
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