17/01/2014 09:15
Spying scandal chills US-German relations
Relations between the US and Germany are now even worse than they were a decade ago when the US invaded Iraq, an ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday, according to the Voice of Russia.
Philipp Missfelder, who is the foreign policy spokesman of the parliamentary fraction of the Christian Democratic Party, of which Ms. Merkel is the leader, insists that Germany should block access to the US to a database of international financial transactions unless the US promises to stop spying on Germany. Mr. Missfelder, who is also the German government’s coordinator for ties with the US, is now expecting that the US will confirm the end of spying in the nearest future.
In fact, talks between the US and Germany over this “non-spying deal” started already last year, after it was found that the US had monitored Chancellor Merkel’s mobile phone. But the talks are now at the brink of collapse because the US is still refusing to confirm that it will stop eavesdropping on Germany’s top politicians.
Until recent, 2003, the year when the US attacked Iraq and Germany did not back this step, has been considered the coolest point in the history of the US-German relations. But the eavesdropping scandal has produced even a greater chill, Philipp Missfelder believes.
Mr. Missfelder’s comments came one day before the US President Barack Obama’s promise to start a reform of the US National Security Agency. However, as Reuters’ observers believe, this reform is unlikely to be very radical.
If talks on the "no spying" agreement fail, Berlin should support suspending a deal clinched in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks that gives the United States access to SWIFT, a global financial database, Philipp Missfelder said.
Last year, the European Parliament voted to suspend the SWIFT agreement because of concerns that the U.S. was snooping on the database for financial gain. However, the vote was symbolic and not binding.
Germany’s three demands for the United States are an agreement not to spy on each other, the end to bugging of politicians, and a general agreement on how the U.S. handles the data that it has already collected as a result of this spying.
However, Missfelder believes that the transatlantic free trade deal should not be reviewed because of this spying scandal. Germany still considers the US to be its friend, he says.
Philipp Missfelder added that many Germans have pinned their hopes on the upcoming visit of Chancellor Merkel to the US. However, now, “these hopes have been disappointed.”