More Europe!

Some might consider him a defector, others the saviour of our privacy, but Edward Snowden, the brave (or foolish) former NSA contractor who leaked very interesting information about the agency’s creative modus operandi, is now the object of careful scrutiny and criticism on both sides of the Atlantic. In what some have already labelled "datagate", many comments have been made about the ethical significance of Snowden’s actions and, for the most part, on the implications for the Obama administration’s management of a system which seems to fall a bit short when it comes to protect its citizens privacy.

But what do EU leaders have to say about the whole thing?
To be honest, when Snowden first leaked information on the NSA metadata control system and PRISM, little concern was shown by EU leaders with regard to privacy. While Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page, terrified by the possible uprising of millions of (national and foreign) users, posted and blogged about their complete extraneousness in any of the NSA activities mentioned by the rogue whistle-blower, only a few European voices - mainly from MEPs - raised any privacy concerns. In Europe, unanimous indignation from the EU (and Member States) establishment mounted only much later. This happened in fact only in the aftermath of new revelations from The Guardian and Der Spiegel on the espionage activities in the European diplomatic missions in NYC and DC.

After the announcement that the French Embassy in Washington had been bugged, French President François Hollande came up with the brilliant idea of linking “datagate” to the incoming TTIP negotiations. Following his footsteps was European Commission VP Reding who, in light of the latest leaks, decided that the idea to postpone the kick-off of negotiations for the TTIP wasn’t such a bad one (I had no idea she was the new trade Commissioner, by the way). On the same line, EP President Martin Schultz claimed to be "deeply worried and shocked" by latest news on diplomatic espionage (his cabinet must have forgotten to print out the press release for the last three weeks, or the LIBE committee reports of February 2013) and that there might be the need to insert a chapter on data protection in the trade agreement with the US. On the Member States side, German opposition leader Peer Steinbrück, raised his voice to remind German voters that the espionage activities were mostly targeted to the German government and that Chancellor Merkel is not doing enough to protect citizens data from Big Brother Uncle Sam (no, upcoming elections in Germany have nothing to do with it).

Now, without wanting to underestimate the crucial importance of secrecy in diplomatic affairs and, if confirmed, the unacceptable conduct of the NSA, a few questions about the reactions in the EU need to be asked: first, why were the initial revelations about PRISM, which really touch upon the issue of citizens’ privacy, not met with indignation? Second, what the heck has diplomatic espionage to do with trade rules? (Oh no, the negotiators know the other side's position before sitting down at the table. Outright scandalous!). Third, and most important, how come German, French and EU Leaders have all of a sudden found a common position on something? (But not the Brits. Honestly, that would have been too much).

Malicious minds would answer all three questions by pointing out that, since the TTIP negotiations are now really in the pipeline, this is all about getting bargaining chips to use for discussions with the US on sensitive issues, improvement of market access conditions to the US (for EU-German exporters), retention of the CAP and the exception culturelle (to the benefit of EU-French producers), to name just a few. But since we, at Moreurope! are not malicious at all, we prefer to think that this is all about taking care of our privacy. Nevertheless, the both answers amount to futile speculations since hard evidence supporting one case or the other is impossible to find. Unless, of course, you can read EU leaders’ minds. Or their e-mails…