德美關係：監聽默克爾

IN JULY, when revelations by Edward Snowden were just beginning to drip out about the breathtaking extent of American spying on its own citizens and allies along with its enemies, Barack Obama, the American president, was still hoping everyone would simply calm down. “Here’s one last thing,” he said at one press conference. “I’m the end user of this kind of intelligence. And if I want to know what Chancellor Merkel is thinking, I will call Chancellor Merkel.”

He was speaking about Angela Merkel, one of the most pro-American leaders of a country that has been one of America’s closest allies. For her part, Mrs Merkel also spent the summer trying to minimise the scandal. She was in the throes of an election campaign and her opponents were trying to paint her as either naive or weak in the face of American violations of German privacy that were being compared to the practices of the Stasi, East Germany’s notorious secret police.

Mrs Merkel was re-elected in September, but the scandal did not go away. Each new revelation has caused fresh outrage somewhere. The Americans allegedly spied on the leaders of Brazil and Mexico and offices of the European Union. On October 21st Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, summoned the American ambassador in Paris after Le Monde, a newspaper, reported the huge scale of alleged American spying on French citizens. According to Le Monde, the National Security Agency (NSA) recorded 70.3m items of French telephone data between December 10th, 2012 and January 8th, 2013 and collected tens of thousands of French phone records. The NSA’s targets appeared to be individuals suspected of links to terrorism, but also people tied to French business or politics. France’s president, François Hollande, telephoned Mr Obama to demand an explanation of these reports.

Then, only two days later, Mr Obama got a call from Mrs Merkel. It may have been the most awkward conversation he has had on the topic yet. Mrs Merkel demanded to know whether the Americans were tapping her mobile phone. A German magazine, Der Spiegel, had asked Germany’s intelligence agencies this, as a result of which Mrs Merkel discovered reasons to suspect as much.

Not now and not in future, Mr Obama replied. This conspicuously left one tense unaccounted for: the past. Germans must assume that their chancellor has in fact been bugged and are wondering what they will discover next.

If there was such espionage, it amounts to “a grave breach of trust” among friends, said Mrs Merkel’s spokesman. Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, followed his French colleague by angrily summoning the American ambassador in Berlin. America’s image has been sinking in Germany and Europe ever since the revelations began. Many EU negotiators are losing their zeal to discuss a free-trade agreement with America without clarifying their overall relationship.

On the same day that Mrs Merkel called Mr Obama, the European Parliament voted to recommend that the EU suspend an arrangement with America in which they share a money-transfer database. As European leaders arrived in Brussels on October 24th for the latest EU summit, American spying was not officially on the agenda. Many were itching to talk seriously about it nonetheless.七月，在愛德華·斯諾登剛剛泄露出美國對其公民、盟友及敵人採取了令人震驚的監視時，美國總統奧巴馬依然希望大家冷靜下來。“還有最後一件事，”他在一次新聞發佈會上說，“我也是這些情報的最終用戶。如果我想知道默克爾總理怎麼想，我會打電話給她。”

他談到了安格拉·默克爾——美國最親密盟友中最親美的國家領導人之一。對於默克爾來說，她也花了一整個夏天試圖將醜聞最小化。當時，她正致力於競選。她的對手將此事與史塔西——東德臭名昭著的情報機構相提並論，企圖將她描畫成一個在面臨德國隱私被美國侵犯時天真或軟弱的形象。

默克爾在九月贏得連任，但竊聽醜聞並未過去。每一次新的泄密都會在某些地方引起新的憤怒。美國涉嫌監視巴西及墨西哥的領導人，以及歐盟辦事處。10月21日，法國報紙《世界報》報道了美國大規模對法國公民進行監聽。隨後，法國外交部長洛朗·法比尤斯立即在巴黎召見了美國駐法大使。《世界報》稱，美國國家安全局記錄了2012年12月10日至2013年1月8日之間7030萬項法國電話數據，並收集了成千上萬個法國的電話記錄。美國國家安全局的目標似乎是涉嫌恐怖主義的人，但同時也是與法國商業、政治有聯繫的人。法國總統奧朗德致電奧巴馬，要求奧巴馬對此作出解釋。

僅僅兩日後，奧巴馬接到了默克爾的來電。這也許是他在這個話題中最尷尬的一次談話。默克爾要求得知美國是否監視了她的通信。德國雜誌《明鏡週刊》向德國情報機構詢問此事，由此默克爾發現了重重疑點。

奧巴馬迴應說，現在沒有，以後也不會監視她。這句話明顯地迴避了“過去”。德國人不得不猜想他們的總理已經被監視了，並想象接下來會有什麼發現。

默克爾的發言人說，這樣的監聽“嚴重違反了盟友間的信任”。德國外交部長基多·威斯特威勒緊隨他的法國同事之後，在柏林憤怒地召見了美國大使。在德國及其他歐洲國家，美國的形象自泄密以來就在不斷下降。由於美國仍未澄清整個竊聽事件，許多歐盟談判代表都對與美國商議免稅貿易協定失去了熱情。

就在默克爾致電奧巴馬當天，歐洲議會投票建議歐盟暫停一項與美國共用資金轉移數據庫的約定。在歐洲領導人到達布魯塞爾準備10月24日的歐盟最新峯會時，美國竊聽事件並未正式提上議程，雖然許多人迫切想認真談談這件事。