News Digest

Airbus to file criminal complaint in German spy scandal

Airbus Group is planning to make a complaint to the authorities in Germany following reports that German foreign intelligence agency BND was helping U.S. agencies spy on European firms, it said on Thursday. Germany’s interior minister Thomas de Maziere, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, denied that he lied to parliament about German intelligence cooperation with U.S. spy agencies.

If it is indeed confirmed that her … friends in Paris were knowingly spied on by the BND … then things can hardly get any more embarrassing.

Greens party lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele on Angela Merkel

Germany’s Bild newspaper had reported on Monday, citing intelligence agency documents, that US spy agencies had targeted Airbus and Eurocopter, now called Airbus Helicopters, as well as other companies for years, and that the German government had known about it since 2008. The Bild report, and other news reports of such alleged intelligence cooperation, have been embarrassing for the German government which has always portrayed itself as a victim of spying by its allies, notably the US.