The European Parliament's commission of inquiry into illegal espionage with Pegasus software has called on Spain on Monday to carry out a "complete, fair and exhaustive" investigation into the monitoring of Catalan independence leaders by the Spanish authorities and also on members of the Government – a case for which Morocco has been pointed – to which the European agency Europol can be added. The commission, which assumes that "the Spanish authorities" spied on dozens of secessionist leaders, also recommends that the Government initiate as soon as possible the reform of the Official Secrets Law and the control of the CNI, which was already announced by the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, in May of last year.
The Commission is not calling for an EU ban on spyware devised by an Israeli company whose use by European governments has shaken the Union. Nor does it ask for a moratorium, which some civil rights groups and organizations had urged, but demands that the program – which allows the spy to listen through the infected mobile, control online activity and data and also activate the phone's camera without the spied on knowing – be used in a "legal" way and that the umbrella that protects its use under the argument of "national security" be clearer. transparent and limited to avoid abuse.
The recommendations approved on Tuesday by a majority of the political groups are the conclusion of a controversial report of the same commission of the European Parliament, promoted by the Dutch Sophie in 't Veld (liberal, of the Renew group), much criticized for its lack of evidence and lack of solidity and also for the absence of other actors such as Russia, in the Spanish case pointed out in several investigations – among them, that of another committee of the European Parliament – for its contacts and meetings with representatives of Catalan secessionism. The document, which describes the alleged use of spyware in several EU countries – Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Poland and Hungary – has been from the outset a political minefield in the European Parliament and in some of the member states, such as Spain.
In the chapters dedicated to Spain, the report assumes that "the Spanish authorities" subjected 65 Catalan separatists to wiretapping, 18 of them with judicial authorization – as admitted by the CNI – for wiretaps whose proportionality the report calls into question. The document approved on Monday after 14 months of work, stresses that the follow-up was carried out especially during moments of "political relevance". For this and other conclusions, the text relies almost exclusively on press clippings and the report of Citizen Lab, a group of analysts linked to the University of Toronto (Canada), which claimed that 63 people related to Catalan independence had allegedly been attacked with Pegasus.
The document, so politicized that it will remain in the commission and will not go to the Plenary of the European Parliament, where next June only the recommendations that it has illuminated will be voted, demands that the 18 people spied on with authorization from the CNI can consult the report that gave rise to those investigations. Members of the Pegasus European parliamentary committee, who visited Spain in March, have already called on the authorities for more cooperation.
The Catalan MEP of ERC Diana Riba has been relatively satisfied with the report and with the recommendations and welcomes having managed to keep the term "catalangate" in the documents and for the elimination of the mention of connections with Russia. Meanwhile, Ciudadanos MEP Jordi Cañas has been very critical of the commission's report. "We denounce the lies on which the recommendations have been built, but nevertheless we support them because, like any democratic [party], Ciudadanos does not want any European citizen to be investigated or illegally spied on," he said.
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