During its year-long mandate, the Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware (PEGA) commissioned studies, held hearings with experts and people targeted with spyware, and organised several fact-finding visits. Pegasus is a hacking tool designed to secretly turn mobile phonesinto 24-hour surveillance devices, as it grants complete and unrestricted access to all sensors and information of the targeted device. The transcript is the result of an automated process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

press conference

fight against cyber attacks (T)

LENAERS, Jeroen (EPP, NL)

IN 'T VELD, Sophia (Renew, NL)

Committee of inquiry to investigate the use of the Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware

Press conference by Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL) chair of the PEGA Committee and Sophie IN 'T VELD (RE, NL), rapporteur on the adoption of the PEGA Inquiry conclusions

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And also from my on my behalf, welcome to to everybody, who's joining us today. To be honest, we've had, of course, a press conference here in the run up to the vote in the Committee.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, There is not much to add to what I've said at that point, just to say that, of course, the vote in the Committee wasn't very successful. We had adopted this recommendation with 30 votes in favour, five people against and two abstentions, which shows I think the huge almost unanimity that exists in this Parliament when it comes to to really tackling this issue.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, Thank you also to the work of our Raporteur Sophie in it felt to have managed to build this big coalition and to really say that the way that spyware has been abused in some Member States is unacceptable and it threatens democracy, it threatens rule of law, and action at the European level is necessary.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, And from the beginning, we have sent where the Commission and many Member States said to us, this is a matter of national security, the European Parliament, the European Union doesn't have a role here because it's a matter of the competence for the Member States, victims should address themselves to the legal systems of the Member States. We have consistently, as a Parliament said.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, This is not only about national security. Surely, it's part of it. But mainly for us, this is a matter of rule of law. And on rule of law, the European Union has its competences and it needs to exercise those competences. Because if you see how in certain countries, opposition leaders, journalists, civil society activists, prosecutors have been targeted, this is no longer anything about national security, it's about rule of law.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, And from the beginning, we have also said we should do our work as a European Parliament, keeping always the perspective of the victims in mind. And when you speak a lot about technology, when you speak a lot about the systems, the rules, the procedures, you sometimes forget, you tend to forget, the hugely invasive nature of such technology and how this affects victims.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, And to have your life taken over, because our life these days is fully in our mobile phones. And once they are in your phone, they can take over everything you do with your phone. If your personal life has been taken over, it is very, very threatening.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, I already would find that very scary, but if you live in a country where you are deemed to be a nuisance to the powers that be or a threat to the power of the regime, it can be right or dangerous, outside the European Union in particularly as well. So, this is what we have done. We have looked at this from the perspective of the victims. There is many recommendations also to improve the position of victims. And I think that is very important.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, Just to sum up, because I would really like to leave the details up to to our rapporteur, just to sum up that this is not a Committee that has taken its job lightly. We have had tens and tens of hearings, we had missions to Israel, to Poland, to Hungary, to Greece, Cyprus, Spain. We have spoken to over 215 interlocutors over the period of one year, which has resulted in a very thorough, a very elaborate work by the Rapporteur and the shadows with the recommendations that we now are going to vote on in the plenary.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, And what is very important, this also means the end of our Committee of Inquiry, but our work is by no means done. Because after we adopt these recommendations, the Commission will have some time to respond to them and we expect the Commission, the European Commission to respond to our recommendations and to rule out the legislative agenda, to implement the recommendations that we make.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, And then we as a Parliament will need to keep pushing to get that done. One personal note I would like to add now I have you all here. First of all, my great gratitude to the rapporteur, to everybody involved to the Secretariat, to the interpreters who made our work so much easier, but also something for myself. Because I noticed that I was informed that last weekend in Poland I featured prominently in the national news claiming myself to be closely linked to Putin, and that this is why we should not take this Pegasus report too seriously.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, And I think this, above all, shows that the work that you've done in the Committee is good, is hitting the right nerves, it makes people who are abusing these kinds of spyware very nervous to such an extent that they resort to these kind of, I don't even know how to call them, autocratic tactics in order to try and undermine the work that our Committee has been doing.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, It's a scandalous way of doing business, but it reassures me that the work that we have done in our Committee and the recommendations that we are proposing also, when it comes to Poland, are good and are hitting the right targets. So thank you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, Thank you, I've always suspected you of being an agent of Putin, whereas myself, of course, I've been paid by source. So, you know, she has a great team in front of you. But as you said, the work of the Committee has come to an end, but the work of the Parliament and of all democrats is only starting.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, What we are going to put on the table tomorrow, because I, I expect there to be a very solid majority tomorrow as well. And that means it's a very, very strong call from the European Parliament.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, And I know that, once we have voted, there will be a sigh of relief in the national capitals, a national government's thinking, "oh, finally, you know, they stop their their irritating investigations". No, we will continue to monitor, to ask questions, to peers, to dig, to put pressure on the government, to give support to those journalists, lawyers, independent bodies... Anybody who is investigating and bringing to light the practices of our governments.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, And I would also like to say we're also going to put a lot of pressure on the Council and the Commission. Because take a step back, two years ago, almost to the day, 23 months, the revelations were made by the Pegasus Project. Not a single case has been brought to justice ever since. Not a single case.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, No justice has been done, in no Member State has there been full clarification of the situation. There's not been okay. There have been a couple of, you know, fake inquiries, but there's never in any Member State been a full inquiry with full disclosure, full shedding, full light on what was going on. Not in a single Member State.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, The European Commission has said throughout that it's taking this very seriously and is waiting for the conclusions of the bigger Committee. Sorry, all the evidence is out there. And by the way, the report has already been adopted a month ago. What's keeping them? And what I find remarkable is this argument. Yes, but this is not yours, it's national competence and we shouldn't interfere and the European Commission is asking questions politely.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, If the government and then accepting the fact that for, you know, the government take months to answer or don't answer at all. I mean, it doesn't give you the feeling that the Commissioner feels this is a crisis of democracy and the rule of law. You know, they take this as a sort of a technocratic issue.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, If you see the crisis response when it comes to, I don't know, the banking crisis, war, the pandemic energy crisis, inflation, you name it, and immediately, you know, the Commission is taking action, seeking the limits of its competences or even going beyond saying crisis management, we have to tackle this.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, But the very, very core of what the European Union is about, and it's laid down in Article two of the Treaties, ladies and gentlemen. Article two is the heart of what the European Union is all about, and it's being violated. And spyware is just a tool in the toolkit of those who are violating Article two.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, Now, if that is not a crisis, a crisis of democracy, a crisis of values, and I don't know what is. And I think the reaction of the European Commission, I mean, I'm not even talking about the Council or in the European Council, because they seem to be beyond hope. Besides, they're the perpetrators.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, But the European Commission should really up its game, should really feel the sense of urgency. And I want the Commission to respond in detail to our recommendations that we are going to vote tomorrow, and not six months from now, but on the double, preferably even before the summer break. Because they need to take action.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, And to say, "Oh, but this is a national security and national security is a kind of blanket exemption to national governments to basically kill democracy". I do not accept that. If we accept that, then the European Union is dead.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN 'T VELD (Renew, NL), rapporteur, And maybe one final remark. You know, if we are on the one hand giving wholehearted moral and material support to brave Ukrainians who are literally, literally giving their lives for our European values, for our democracy, for our European Union, then why do we tolerate that democracy is being is being destroyed inside the European Union by our very own governments, I think is unacceptable.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Chair of the PEGA Committee, We owe it to those who in the past and in the present are fighting literally for our values. And that is what we will continue to do. And the building blocks for that, I think, are the reports and the recommendations. And we will continue to watch what's happening. We will continue to ask questions and we will continue to work with those people who are out there, including investigative journalists, who are bringing to light these these evil practices. Thank you.

Q&A, Question regarding on the process of their implementation in each country.

Q&A, Question regarding on possible involvement of Committee MEP in Qatargate. Second question on the likelihood of MEPs being at risk of being spied on. Third question on cooperation with national governments during the course of the inquiry.

Q&A, Question regarding on how to proceed in order to make the Greeks concerned about espionage. Second question on cooperation with the Greek authorities and the Greek government.

Q&A, Question on Greek situation regarding on secret services and spyware. Second question regarding on the effectiveness of the PEGA Inquiry Committee and future procedures.