From 19 to 21 September, a delegation of ten MEPs from the EP’s spyware inquiry committee will be in Warsaw to hear from victims of spyware, local politicians, and other experts. The mission ends with the press conference held by Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Head of the delegation and PEGA Chair and by Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur

EP delegation

press conference

LENAERS, Jeroen (EPP, NL)

IN 'T VELD, Sophia (Renew, NL)

EU mechanism on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights (T)

Warsaw

rule of law

Press conference by Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Head of the delegation and PEGA Chair and by Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur - MEPs Delegation of the PEGA Committee to Warsaw

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP,NL), Head of the delegation and PEGA Chair, Thank you all for your interest in the work of our Committee. Just to underline once more, we are a delegation of the special enquiry Committee of the European Parliament into the abuse of Pegasus and equivalence spyware in the European Union. We are here this week in particular to to investigate the situation in Poland but as I said, our mandate covers the whole of the European Union. We were here with a delegation of ten members of the European Parliament from five different political parties and six nationalities.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP,NL), Head of the delegation and PEGA Chair, Now, since we arrived in Warsaw, our programme started about 48 hours ago. We had ten full fledged hearings. We spoke to more than forty interlocutors, including members of the Senate, extraordinary committee on Pegasus. We met with representatives of the Supreme Audit Office of the Ombudsman. We met with victims, with judges, prosecutors, journalists, experts in all fields. So we had a very, very constructive and a very fruitful delegation visit.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP,NL), Head of the delegation and PEGA Chair, Here in the list of interlocutors I mentioned, you will notice that we did not have any meetings with official representatives of the governments. We had sent invitations to Minister Kaminsky, to Ministers Ziobro. We had sent invitations to the anti-corruption bureau and the data protection authorities. All of them were declined. It is regretful and we condemn the fact that the Polish authorities did not want to cooperate with our investigation committee.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP,NL), Head of the delegation and PEGA Chair, We think it also is a telling sign of a complete lack of importance the government attaches to checks and balances, to democratic scrutiny and to dialogue with elected representatives. But as I underlined, even with the absence of meetings with the government, I think we had a very important and a very useful visit to Warsaw and the exchanges we had, I think, shed new light on the illegal use of intrusive spyware in Poland against Democratic actors.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP,NL), Head of the delegation and PEGA Chair, We see that the system of legal and institutional checks and balances has been dismantled to enable targeting individuals that are deemed opponents of the government and as a result, crucial democratic standards and citizens' rights enshrined in Polish and European law are grossly violated. And this is yet another dimension of the crisis of rule of law in Poland, because this is at its core about rule of law.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP,NL), Head of the delegation and PEGA Chair, And I would like to underline that because the government, and it's not the only government in Europe, is hiding behind national security provisions, but there is no realistic scenario possible in my mind, and I think my colleagues share that, in which national security requires you to use highly invasive spyware, such as Pegasus, against opposition politicians, against prosecutors, against lawyers. So it is about rule of law. The rule of law is crucially important.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP,NL), Head of the delegation and PEGA Chair, We only have to look at Putin's Russia today to give us a stark signal, a warning signal about what happens if you truly abandon all rule of law, all checks and balances and all democratic processes, because democracy ceases to exist. And there should be a stark warning to us all to continue our fight to protect the rule of law in Poland and beyond, and to encourage all those actors in civil society, judges, in academics, here in Poland and in the rest of Europe who are fighting the fight for rule of law every day to encourage those and to help them in that fight.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, These have been very intense days and I think that we, all the members of the delegation, or I should say all the members of the delegation who have been participating throughout the three days, because our colleague from the ECR Group has participated in one or two meetings and we haven't seen him any more since. But I think I will speak on behalf of all of us who have been there, that we come away from this visit very, very worried.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, As my colleague said, this Committee is in charge of investigating the illegitimate use of spyware throughout Europe, not just Pegasus, but also other brands. We note that spyware is being used by pretty much all governments or in all member states, but most member states would indeed use it in a very exceptional targeted manner, embedded in a system of safeguards, oversight, scrutiny and what have you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, But in some member states like in Poland, there is clearly a case of spyware not being used for the security of citizens, but actually against citizens. And spyware, I would dare say, has become a tool for an authoritarian political agenda by the government parties, whereby all safeguards have been either eliminated, or they have been massacred to such an extent that they have become completely meaningless.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, And what I find very worrying, like my colleague, is the total absence of the, the government bodies and government parties throughout these days. Because there may be political differences, but we can never differ on the basics of democracy and the rule of law, because if we don't have the same, if we're not playing by the same rules, then effectively democracy is dead. Now, I will present my report early November, and of course, it will cover the entire European Union. But I can assure you there will be a very solid chapter on the situation in Poland.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, I think the last remark on Poland and then the European dimension, I'm very sad to say that after three days here, my expectations of remedies to be implemented by the current government are close to zero, if not zero. But because there's clearly no political will, the fact that the system here is working against citizens is not by accident, it's by design. And I find that extremely worrying.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, I think that we will be making proposals for European standards for the use of spyware, and that means that spyware can be used in a very limited number of very exceptional cases, duly justified by or scrutinised by judges, monitored with all the necessary transparency, rights for victims, and what have you. I think it's not so difficult to come up with a set of proposals, but then it's not enough to have legislation and standards. They also have to be applied.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, And here I would like to also make an appeal to the European Commission, because, yes, it is true that national security is the exclusive domain of the member states. But it seems to me that, and it was also alluded to by my colleague, that national security has become, you know, is the door to an area of lawlessness whereby member state governments say up from this point onwards, there is no scrutiny, no transparency. The rules don't apply anymore, the European Union has nothing to say. That is unacceptable.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, We all live in the European Union. We all have to respect the same values and all European citizens are entitled to the same protection of their rights. So I would urge the European Commission to let go of its, you know, none of my business, see no evil, hear no evil attitude and really enforce European laws. We've been talking about e-privacy, GDPR, Charter of Fundamental Rights and what have you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, Same applies to Europol. I would like to reiterate my call for Europol to, if it's not invited by the governments to participate in investigations, to propose at its own initiative to be associated to to investigations, because at least the presence of Europol would secure, you know, evidence, would secure a proper conduct of investigations. It would give a minimum level of protection.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, And finally, my last remark. Let's not forget that Pegasus in this case, there are also other brands, but Pegasus has been manufactured and sold by a company called Enzo Group. A marketing licence and an export licence has been granted by the government of Israel and they refuse to basically cooperate and give us any information.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, Why is it that we cannot say with certainty whether Poland was struck off the list of countries that export licences can be granted for? Why can we not say with certainty that Poland was one of the two countries of which the contract have been terminated? Why is it that Enzo is allowed to operate in the European Union, conduct finances through Luxembourg, sell its products to now twelve member states, products that have been used to violate the rights of European citizens and to attack democracy of the European Union?

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew,NL), rapporteur, And yet Enzo is not obliged to give us any information. Israel is a friendly country. They're an ally. I would expect the government to cooperate with us in the protection of our citizens, so I would urge them to give that information immediately. Thank you.

Q&A, On whether the Committee members believe that this investigation will encourgage the Polish government to change it's attitude on this situation.

Q&A, On whether Poland still has a Pegasus or if licence it has been terminated. up question asking for the worst example of civil rights violations discovered during the investigation. Follow

Q&A, On the Committee's activities for this mandate and the rule of law in Poland.

Q&amp;A, On the impact spyware use could have on elections in Poland.