The European Parliament has demanded that the European Commission issue an evaluation "before the end of November" to clarify whether Spain and other EU member states meet the conditions to continue using spyware programs such as Pegasus. At the same time, the European Parliament has noted that the value of the investigation into the use of Pegasus in Spain was reduced because of Israel's lack of cooperation. In a resolution adopted this Thursday in the plenary session in Strasbourg - with 425 votes in favour, 108 against and 23 abstentions - MEPs criticized the lack of action by the Union executive to stop the "abuse" of these tools across the continent. As well as Spain, where the spyware program was heavily used against the Catalan independence movement as documented by the Catalangate report, the espionage software was also deployed in the EU countries of Cyprus, Greece, Hungary and Poland. The European Parliament has also shown "concern" that new cases may occur in countries such as Germany.
In the text passed this Thursday, the European Parliament regrets that, despite the demands for legislative changes made by the committee of investigation into the use of Pegasus , the European Commission "has not yet presented a plan on how to respond to the threats posed to people and democracy". That is why a large majority of MEPs have urged the executive to take "the necessary measures" and ask for a report to be drawn up in the next seven days. In fact, the Parliament referred to new cases of espionage recently detected in Europe to underline that "the current legal framework is not sufficient to prevent excesses".
The resolution also makes explicit the MEPs' concern about the sale of spy programs produced in the European Union to "repressive" regimes. The text refers to the French company Nexa Technologies, which has marketed its Predator program to governments such as Egypt, Vietnam and Madagascar, as well as requesting an investigation in Ireland into the role of the Intellexa group in the sale of this type of software.
A "full, fair and effective" investigation in Spain
This June, the European Parliament already approved a text in which it reiterated its call to Spain to carry out a "full, fair and effective" investigation of its spyware espionage cases, especially the 47 cases revealed in the Catalangate study for which no information has been offered. The MEPs voted by a wide margin to adopt the recommendations made by the committee which for the last year and a half has addressed cases of espionage within the EU using software such as Pegasus. In the section on recommendations to Spain, the MEPs called on the authorities to clarify the espionage against the 65 people in pro-independence circles who were spied on, including 47 cases which have never been recognized by Spain's National Intelligence Centre (CNI). The text also urged the Spanish authorities to cooperate with the courts to give victims "legal redress" and ensure that "impartial" "judicial inquiries" were carried out without delay and with sufficient resources.