Since many major EU countries share their classified intelligence and surveillance systems with the US (and the reverse) this seems more like political speech than reality. The real reason is to preserve what’s left of tech in the EU but that doesn’t exactly sound as good.
Almost all major countries have surveillance programs. They are perhaps necessary to preserve national security. The hope of democratic countries is to have enough checks and balances on those powers to keep them limited to national security interests and to prevent abuse.
This is one area where you have to separate the EU from its constituent member states.
The EU's treaties explicitly reserve national security for the member states themselves (except for where there is unanimity or opt-in in specific areas).
As such, in most cases, the Commission and Parliament can't legislate to bring MS' own intelligence services under control.
To change the situation the treaties would have to be changed (which is a can of worms in itself) and all 27 members would have to agree to the changes (one or two would require a referendum).
There is a difference between sharing information (where you control what is shared) and letting the other party have all the information and look at it by their own.
The fact that EU shares intelligence with US is less of a problem as long as EU citizens have a somewhat confidence in their government and security services.
It is a big difference from letting US process all private information about the EU citizens and by that enable US to rummage around as they wish without having to obey laws or regulations in EU.
I don’t think you understand - the systems themselves are shared.
This isn’t ‘let’s decide to let X country know Y’. If it is on the eyes network (and tons of things are) everyone gets it per the multi country agreement.
I was thinking the same thing. It seems that we have passed 'peak globalization' and we're seeking a sweet spot that balances concerns. This could be a good thing.
Almost all major countries have surveillance programs. They are perhaps necessary to preserve national security. The hope of democratic countries is to have enough checks and balances on those powers to keep them limited to national security interests and to prevent abuse.