If the allegations are true, they might worsen the U.S. – Germany relation. The secret documents revealed by Snowden last year already negatively impacted the inter-country relations. According to the information from last year, the US secret services were spying on millions of Germans, among which one of them was Chancellor Merkel. The cringe inducing situation appeared to have been partially resolved after the U.S. authorities declared they will stop tapping the Chancellor’s phone. However, they did not agree to a wider pact against spying and now Germany accuses US of spying once more. The Snowden leaks proved to be a barrier in developing political relations with Russia as well.
Germany accuses US in another political spying scandal
So another scandal just broke out. On Monday, the Karlsruhe-based Federal Prosecutor of Germany announced with no further details that a 31 years old man has been charged with spying accusations. The accused works for Germany’s foreign intelligence services. Initially, he was charged with the accusation that he works for Russia, but he later admitted to be working for the U.S.
Reuters declares based on unidentified sources that the CIA is involved in the matter by recruiting the spy. The Cold-War-like situation obliged the Chief of the CIA, John Brennan, to ask for a meeting with ‘key members of the US Congress’ to brief them on the matter.
“The relationship that the United States has with Germany is incredibly important. This is a very close partnership that we have on a range of security issues, including some intelligence issues,” Earnest Josh, the White House Press Secretary said. “All of those things are high priorities not just to this administration, but to this country. So we’re going to work with the Germans to resolve this situation appropriately.”
Merkel is right on on the other part of the world visiting China. She was interrogated by reporters during the official meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and diplomatically declared “If the reports are correct it would be a serious case,”. “If the allegations are true, it would be for me a clear contradiction as to what I consider to be trusting cooperation between agencies and partners,”. We would really like to know what the two leaders discussed after coming back to their meeting, after clearly Germany accuses US of impolitely snooping once more.
This case just adds insult to injury for Germany, as another case was revealed last week by German media. Allegedly, the NSA was spying on a privacy advocate working to enhance the privacy of Internet users against NSA spying.