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“Bugging friends is unacceptable. It can not go on. We are no longer in a Cold War”: Chancellor Angela Merkel has openly criticised spying on the part of the United States.
“It is the first time that [she] has dared to make such a clear pronouncement” on the issue, reports Die Tageszeitung. The caustic tone is all the more “remarkable” because it comes from a leader ”who characteristically avoids all conflict,” points out the daily.
However, this ”transatlantic call to order” is first and foremost an expression of the German Chancellor’s powerlessness. The newspaper continues —
Secret services are parallel universes and governments [...] have hardly any influence on them, and this poses a burning question for Angela Merkel: was the leadership of German external security completely unaware of the espionage attacks?
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