EU Parliament in talks with Greece over surveillance scandal

By Agnes Szucs

BRUSSELS (AA) – The European Parliament is working with Greek authorities on the investigation about the illegal surveillance of Nikos Androulakis, a Greek EU lawmaker and the leader of the PASOK party, the spokesman of the EU institution’s president told Anadolu Agency.

The European Parliament (EP) is “ready to fully cooperate with the Greek authorities and make available the information gathered” through the institution’s security check revealing that Androulakis was wiretapped, Roberta Metsola’s spokesman Juri Laas noted.

The surveillance scandal broke out following Androulakis’ complaint to the Greek top prosecutor after the EP’s cybersecurity experts detected the Predator malware on his phone.

Laas confirmed that the European Parliament has already received the “first request for information from a Greek authority” which will be answered “in the coming days.”

Metsola will make sure that “everything is duly investigated” since the “illegal surveillance of (EP) Members’ communications is intolerable and inexcusable,” he added.

“Such infringements of the principles and values which form the basis of our democratic system cannot be tolerated, irrespective of the Member State where they occur,” he said.

As a follow-up, Metsola also tasked vice-presidents, Eva Kaili and Dita Charanzova, to work with the parliament’s cybersecurity services to ensure adequate protection and assistance to MPs against spyware use.

The EP’s special committee PEGA, dedicated to scrutinizing the state use of spyware software, will also extend its work to the Greek scandal.

Thanasis Koukakis, a journalist who has been surveilled by the Greek National Intelligence Service (EYP), is expected to testify later this month.

Last week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis admitted that the EYP wiretapped Androulakis, but denied having any information about the illegal surveillance.

EYP’s director Panagiotis Kontoleon, and the prime minister’s secretary-general, Grigoris Dimitriadis, resigned following the former’s confession at a parliamentary committee that his agency had been spying on Koukakis.

The committee was convened after Androulakis complained about an attempt to hack his cellphone with the Predator tracking software.