Brussels steps up Brexit room security with ‘fierce new secretary’
such assessments would destroy British arguments that the EU should show “flexibility” towards the UK and allow it a measure of “cherry-picking” in the EU’S single market.
The question of how British sources obtained the contents of the slide presentation played into long-held suspicions on the EU side that they were being bugged.
EU diplomats say that the 2013 scandal of Barack Obama’s administration bugging the phone of Mrs Merkel destroyed any illusions that allies would not bug each other – with Britain well known to have the deepest links with the US security establishment, via GCHQ.
A second senior EU diplomat involved in Brexit made light of Ms Weyand’s fears of British eavesdropping. “To be honest, we have never thought anything different,” he said.
The Telegraph understands that the European Council has taken measures to limit the risk of snooping, with a “fierce new secretary” being placed outside the secure Brexit meeting room to collect mobile phones and other devices from attendees.
The risk of spying appears to be taken seriously by both sides, however, after it emerged last year that David Da- vis, who was the Brexit secretary at the time, had taken to using a snoop-proof Faraday briefcase and swapped his Apple watch for a Garmin one to avoid
‘We don’t need to resort to secret methods, there are plenty of friends who will share what is going on’
anyone hacking its microphone. British officials have also been seen to carry their own printers into the EU’S Berlaymont headquarters, admitting that they fear that the EU’S printers might make secret copies of their documents. Speaking privately, UK officials dismissed the European bugging concerns as “too imaginative”, arguing that there were plenty of sources of good information in the leaky Brussels bureaucracy.
“We don’t need to resort to secret methods,” said one very senior UK official involved in the talks. “There are plenty of friends who will share what is going on anyway.”
Even so, the speed of the July 5 leak clearly alarmed Mr Barnier’s team, the source said, because the slides were not circulated formally to the 27 member states.