Merkel defends U.S. intelligence cooperation

BLOOMBERG

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel defended Germany’s intelligence cooperation with the United States amid allegations that German spies helped the National Security Agency collect information on allies.

“The government will do everything to guarantee the capability of the intelligence services,” Merkel told reporters Monday. “Considering terrorist threats, that capability can only happen in cooperation with other agencies. That very much includes the NSA, among others.”

Merkel’s rebuttal is her latest attempt to deal with two years of revelations about NSA mass surveillance, including the alleged tapping of her mobile phone, that have caused outrage in Germany and led to the departure of the top U.S. intelligence officer in Berlin last July.

With opposition parties and newspapers editorials demanding answers, Merkel pointed to a parliamentary inquiry on NSA global surveillance. Steffen Seibert, her chief spokesman, said Monday she would testify to the committee if asked.

The latest revelations began with a Der Spiegel report April 23 that the NSA had used the network of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, or BND, to collect information on French officials as well as European Aeronautic, Defense & Space Co.

Within hours, Merkel’s office issued a statement rebuking the BND for “deficiencies.” Airbus Group, which was formerly known as EADS, said last week it was filing a criminal complaint citing possible industrial espionage.

Pushing back, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Monday that a document that surfaced in the chancellery when he was Merkel’s chief of staff didn’t prove the NSA exploited the BND.

“In 2008, there was no report containing concrete evidence of NSA abuse, rather it was about not expanding a certain form of cooperation with the NSA in an effort to avoid just such exploitation,” he told a conference in Berlin.

BND President Gerhard Schindler also defended cooperation with other spy services.

“The BND works for German interests, for Germany and nobody else,” he said at the Berlin conference.