“Climate of trust” could be broken if US spying allegations are true, warns minister

Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo on Monday took a severe stance over reports concerning alleged US spying activities in Spain, warning that “the climate of trust” between Madrid and Washington could be broken if they are confirmed to be true.

García-Margallo made his comments after US Ambassador to Spain James Costos met with a Foreign Ministry official to offer explanations for information published by EL PAÍS that US intelligence agencies conducted espionage in Spain.

Spain’s secretary of state for the European Union, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, passed on a message from the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy expressing its “concern over the information published in the media in recent days,” while underlining “the necessary balance that all systems must maintain between security and the right to privacy in communications, as is clearly laid out in Spanish legislation.”

We must maintain the balance between security and the right to privacy”

In Warsaw, García-Margallo told reporters at a joint press conference with his Polish counterpart that he had been in touch with Costos even before Monday’s meeting.

“So far, we have no official indication that our country has been spied on,” Garcia-Margallo said. “As on previous occasions, we’ve asked the US ambassador to give the government all the necessary information on an issue which, if it were to be confirmed, could break the climate of trust that has traditionally existed between our two countries.”

After the meeting, the US Embassy released a statement reaffirming President Obama’s pledge to world leaders for an internal review “to ensure that the intelligence that is collected under these programs is not just all the intelligence that the United States is able to collect, but rather intelligence that should and needs to be collected.”

“Ultimately, the United States needs to balance the important role that these programs play in protecting our national security and protecting the security of our allies with legitimate privacy concerns,” said Costos’ statement, which was posted on the US Embassy-Madrid website.

EL PAÍS last week revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) had tracked millions of Spanish citizens’ telephone calls, text messages and emails. On Monday, daily El Mundo published a story with information from whistleblowing journalist Glenn Greenwald, stating that the NSA spied on 60 million calls in Spain between December 2012 and early January of this year.

In the message delivered to the US ambassador by Méndez de Vigo, the Rajoy administration stressed “the importance of preserving the spirit of trust that characterizes bilateral relations,” and the need “to know the extent of certain practices, which, if proved to be true, are inappropriate and unacceptable between allies and friendly nations.”

According to a Foreign Ministry press release, Costos said he would “pass on Spain’s concern to the US authorities,” adding that he was confident that “the US government will dispel the doubts that have arisen over this issue.”

“The US and Spain have enjoyed a long friendship based on our shared values and a history of cooperating to advance mutual interests around the globe,” the American Embassy statement read. “As part of that effort, we will continue to work closely with Spain on a wide range of issues, including the collective security of our two countries and of US and Spanish citizens.”