News-Politics: Tension, as EU leaders meet amid concern about U.S. spying claims

                        

Serious concerns have really grown among stakeholders, following the alleged spying on some Nations communications systems by the US. European Union leaders are meeting Thursday in Brussels for a summit that may be overshadowed by anger about allegations that the United States has been spying on its European allies.

Report from CNN stated that German Chancellor, Angela Merkel discussed the issue with U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday, after the German government said it had information that the United States might have monitored her cell phone.

The German allegation comes in the same week that French daily newspaper Le Monde reported claims that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted more than 70 million phone calls in France over a 30-day period.

                               

The two-day EU summit in Brussels, Belgium, is supposed to focus on the digital economy and economic and social policy issues, as well as concerns about EU migration, after a recent shipwreck off an Italian island in which hundreds of migrants from Africa died.

But French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told the French National Assembly on Tuesday that France would ask for the question of electronic surveillance to be added to the agenda.

It's not clear whether this has happened, but the EU leaders are expected to discuss data protection issues as part of their debate on the digital economy.

                           

                              

'Completely unacceptable'

Even before the latest allegations, Germany and other nations had expressed concerns about alleged U.S. spying after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified information about American surveillance programs.

U.S. spy chief says reports of NSA logging French phone calls are false

German news magazine Der Spiegel reported in June that leaks from Snowden detailed how the agency bugged EU offices in Washington and New York, and conducted an "electronic eavesdropping operation" that tapped into an EU building in Brussels.

Merkel spoke with Obama by phone in July about allegations that the United States was conducting surveillance on its European allies.

After Wednesday's call, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that Obama had told Merkel that the United States "is not monitoring and will not monitor" her communications.

Merkel made it clear that if the information about the U.S. having monitored her phone were true, it would be "completely unacceptable," spokesman Steffen Seibert said of the call.

The U.S. ambassador to Germany, John Emerson, was summoned to a meeting with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Thursday afternoon, the German Foreign Ministry said. Germany will make its position clear at that meeting, a spokeswoman said.

A spokesman for David Cameron declined to answer questions Thursday about whether the British Prime Minister's phone had been tapped by the United States, following Germany's suspicion about U.S. monitoring of Merkel's cell phone.

"I am not going to comment on matters of security or intelligence," the spokesman told reporters at a regular briefing.

Ayrault: 'Shocking' claims

Ayrault described the report of widespread spying by the NSA on French calls as "worrying" and "shocking," saying that security should not be guaranteed at the price of a loss of freedom.

Report: U.S. intercepts French phone calls on a 'massive scale'

However, U.S. director of national intelligence James Clapper suggested that the claims made by Le Monde were false.

The articles "contain inaccurate and misleading information regarding U.S. foreign intelligence activities," a written statement from his office said Tuesday. It added that the United States does gather intelligence of "the type gathered by all nations."

Nonetheless, the allegations prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity this week between the United States and France.

Obama and French President Francois Hollande spoke about the claims Monday.

"The President and President Hollande discussed recent disclosures in the press -- some of which have distorted our activities and some of which raise legitimate questions for our friends and allies about how these capabilities are employed," a White House news release said.

"The President made clear that the United States has begun to review the way that we gather intelligence, so that we properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people share."

Hollande's office said the President expressed his "deep disapproval with regard to these practices" to Obama and that such alleged activities would be unacceptable between allies and friends.

The two Presidents agreed that French and American intelligence services would cooperate on investigating the report, according to the statement from the French President's office.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also met Tuesday to discuss the claims. The U.S. ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin, was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry in Paris on Monday to discuss the alleged spying.

Claims of U.S. spying, resulting from leaks by Snowden, have also soured U.S. relations with Mexico and Brazil.

Der Spiegel recently published allegations, citing Snowden as its source, that the U.S. National Security Agency "systematically" eavesdropped on the Mexican government and hacked the public e-mail account of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon.