Europe’s problems
IN MY OPINIONKlaus Doring
Germany reforms its main intelligence service! This headline surprised me and many others too in whole Europe. How comes?
The German parliament has subjected the country’s intelligence service, the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst), to increased government scrutiny. But critics object that it also gives the BND wide-ranging new powers to spy on foreign nationals.
Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, has passed a comprehensive reform of the country’s main intelligence service, the BND. The new legislation strengthens government monitoring of intelligence activities while explicitly allowing the BND to carry out certain types of surveillance activities.
The reform comes in the wake of the 2013 revelations by American whistle-blower Edward Snowden that a number of national intelligence services, including the BND, had spied on behalf of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and that the NSA had spied on its allies. That prompted the formation of a German parliamentary committee to draft intelligence agency reforms.
The new legislation subjects the BND to monitoring by an “independent panel” of two judges and a federal prosecutor and a “permanent commissioner” from the Interior Ministry. It stipulates that surveillance of international communications networks must be authorized by the Chancellor’s Office rather than by the BND itself and explicitly prohibits economic and industrial espionage.
The new laws also provide for better protection for whistle-blowers within intelligence services and subjects the BND to annual public hearings instead of private ones, as has been the case. The reforms also explicitly allow the BND to direct espionage operations at EU institutions and other EU member states, if they are aimed at gathering “information of significance for [Germany’s] foreign policy and security.”The reform also permits the BND to cooperate with foreign intelligence services like the NSA if it serves specific purposes, including fighting terrorism, supporting the German military on foreign missions or collecting information concerning the safety of Germans abroad.
The legislation was passed with the votes of the governing Conservative-Social Democratic coalition, which said that the reforms address the concerns raised by the Snowden leaks while allowing the BND to use 20th century means to ensure Germany’s security. “How else is the BND supposed to protect us against terrorism other than listening in on conversations between people outside of Ger-many?” said Clemens Binninger of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, the chairman of the Bundestag’s NSA parliamentary committee.
Do we have to deal with so-called Extra-legal spaces?
Former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger tweeted, “Unconstitutional BND law: I’m consulting with my colleagues at the FDP (Liberal Democratic Party).
But what matters more? Or even most? EU leaders have ended a Brussels summit without agreeing on a free trade deal with Ottawa as Belgium’s region of Wallonia refused a last minute offer. Canada’s trade minister said the deal was “impossible” at the moment. Tensions were high in Brussels on Friday (yesterday, write this piece on Saturday, October 22, 2016), after the government of Wallonia refused to budge on CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) despite massive pressure from Canada, the Belgian government, and the overwhelming majority of EU officials. Ottawa’s representative Chrystia Freeland blasted the EU as incapable of resolving the impasse, saying her country was “disappointed.”
“It seems evident for me and for Canada that the European Union is not now capable of having an international accord even with a country that has values as European as Canada, even with such a kind, patient, country,” the trade minister said in the Belgian city of Namur.
The parliament of the 3.5 million-strong region voted against the so-called CETA last week , blocking the deal near the very end of the seven-year negotiation procedure which aimed to cancel 98 percent of trade tariffs between EU and Canada. The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was to travel to Europe and sign the deal on the 27th of October.
Romania and Bulgaria were also opposed to the deal, but decided to get on board in exchange for visa-free travel to Canada from 2017. Wallonia, however, still holds out against it, with its lawmakers concerned about CETA lowering Europe’s health standards, hurting small farmers, and giving big business power to force governments to change laws.
Also, CETA is seen as a probe for a much larger deal with the US, with citizens across Europe voicing similar com-plaints.
CETA also faced a challenge in Germany’s Constitutional Court, but was deemed to be in line with German law just over a week ago.
Europe is dealing with a lot of problems on all sights, while this nation Philippines is facing a lot of changes. For the good or the better? Future shall show us.
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