Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-05-Speech-3-017"
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"en.20010905.2.3-017"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, I would like to congratulate Gerhard Schmid on his excellent report. The reports reaches the conclusion that a global communications interception system exists within the framework of the UKUSA Agreement, that this system is definitely known as Echelon, that it is used to intercept private business, and not military, communications, that the system’s technical capabilities are probably not nearly as extensive as some have assumed, but that prevention to some extent is necessary.
In spite of what some minority voices say, Mr Schmid was not more preoccupied with industrial espionage than with individual monitoring. He is proposing no less than eight specific measures to enhance the protection of citizens’ rights within the framework of various international treaties, and he calls upon the Member States and the Council to adopt at least seven specific national legislative measures to protect citizens. Of course, some specific measures are proposed to assist businesses, but these are more vague and their scope is less extensive than the measures on individual monitoring.
As a citizen of a country whose intelligence service is certainly very small-scale compared to those of its larger neighbours or allies, I still believe that it is misleading and futile to suggest abolishing the secret services. They exist and they will continue to exist. We should, therefore, draw political conclusions and seek solutions at this level – we should monitor the activities of these services, subject them to legal and parliamentary scrutiny, adopt uniform rules to protect citizens at the highest national level and apply this throughout the European Union. The proposals in paragraphs 16 and 17 of the resolution must also be seen from this perspective. With the strengthening of European security and defence policy and the EU’s increasing involvement in crisis prevention and management, collaboration amongst intelligence services is growing and the EU will eventually have to have an autonomous European intelligence capability. This can only be achieved if there is a system for democratic monitoring.
With regard to Echelon, the resolution specifically calls upon Germany and the United Kingdom to make authorisation of communications interception operations by US intelligence services on their territory conditional on their compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights and judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
Far from having wanted to create repeated diversions, Mr Schmid has dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, he has more than fulfilled the mandate bestowed upon him by the Temporary Committee on Echelon and he has provided Parliament with a tool to enable us to continue the work he has done in the interests of protecting citizens."@en1
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