UK blocks planned EU talks with US over spying scandals

BRITAIN has clashed with Germany and France by blocking plans to create a European Union “working group” of national security advisers to negotiate with the US over the recent series of spying scandals.

Germany and France had wanted the special body created to hold talks with Washington tomorrow after recent reports of surveillance activities by the US National Security Agency. The reports — largely springing from information leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden — have included details on operations by the British listening station GCHQ.

But the plans to confront the US have been scuppered after the British government barred the move. During diplomatic negotiations in Brussels all Thursday night and Friday morning, Britain vetoed the plan because of fears that it would give the EU power over national security matters, a fiercely guarded area of sovereignty.

“It is important to sort out the rules of the game, and the proposal was going into risky territory beyond the competencies of the EU,” said a European diplomat.

The row means that talks between the EU and US over national security and intelligence operations will not take place in Washington tomorrow, as originally announced by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, after a telephone call with US President Barack Obama on Wednesday.

Instead, the European Commission will head up a separate working group with a restricted negotiating mandate.

Conceding defeat, Jose Manuel Barroso, the commission president, said: “The meeting will be for clarification on data protection and privacy rights falling within the competencies of the EU.”—