BERLIN
Senior German lawmakers demanded Thursday answers from Chancellor Angela Merkel over claims that the intelligence service BND helped its U.S. counterpart, the National Security Agency, or NSA, spy on French politicians, EU officials and European companies.
Christian Flisek, a senior Social Democrat lawmaker and member of the parliamentary investigative committee on the activities of NSA, called on Chancellor Merkel to provide a full list of the telephone numbers and IP addresses monitored as part of the BND’s cooperation with the NSA.
"The Chancellery should put all the facts on the table," Flisek told public television ZDF.
"We expect from the Chancellery to provide our investigative committee until next week with the full list of so-called parameters, and their explanations," he said.
German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung reported Thursday that the NSA had demanded the surveillance of at least 690,000 telephone numbers and 7.8 million IP numbers in 2013 alone. The secret cooperation with the BND reportedly began in 2002 through the satellite tracking station in the southeastern city of Bad Aibling.
According to the report, senior officials from the French presidency, the Foreign Ministry and from the European Commission were the targets of surveillance.
The daily reported that as early as 2008, BND officials had apparently informed Thomas de Maiziere, at the time the minister overseeing Germany's intelligence agencies, of the NSA spying on European businesses.
Still the cooperation between the BND and the NSA apparently continued uninterrupted.
According to the daily, an internal BND investigation in 2013 revealed that the NSA was massively monitoring European politicians and companies, through Bad Aibling.
But the agency only informed German Chancellor Merkel’s office about the scandal in March of this year, the daily reported.
German opposition parties demanded Thursday a full inquiry into the claims, and criticized government for hiding information from the parliament.
Konstantin von Notz, Green Party lawmaker and member of the investigative committee on the NSA activities, criticized Thomas de Maiziere, who is now the interior minister, for refusing to make public comments on the recent scandal, citing the secret character of the cooperation between BND and NSA.
“What we need now is transparency to find the truth, one cannot now clear things up with secretiveness or cover-up," von Notz told public television ARD.
"Merkel has promised to clarify this. Now the documents should be sent to our commission without delay," he stressed.
De Maiziere has promised to help the inquiry on the scandal and is expected to present himself before the Parliamentary Control Panel, which oversees the activities of Germany’s intelligence services, in a closed meeting next week.
Germany’s main opposition The Left Party called for the resignation of the officials who had a responsibility in the recent scandal.
Left Party lawmaker Andre Hahn, member of the Parliamentary Control Panel, said that it was still not clear whether Merkel had been previously informed of the scandal.
"But one thing is clear. If the NSA had spied against German and European interests for years with the help of the BND, this should have a consequence. Both at the top of BND, and within the Chancellery,” he said in a statement posted on the webpage of The Left Party.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Wednesday that Chancellor Angela Merkel has instructed the BND to conduct a comprehensive investigation on the situation.
He dismissed claims that the government knew about the scandal but did not inform the parliament.
