德美关系：监听默克尔

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, 2017 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，在爱德华·斯诺登刚刚泄露出美国对其公民、盟友及敌人采取了令人震惊的监视时，美国总统奥巴马依然希望大家冷静下来。“还有最后一件事，”他在一次资讯发布会上说，“我也是这些情报的最终用户。如果我想知道默克尔总理怎么想，我会打电话给她。”

他谈到了安格拉·默克尔——美国最亲密盟友中最亲美的国家领导人之一。对于默克尔来说，她也花了一整个夏天试图将丑闻最小化。当时，她正致力于竞选。她的对手将此事与史塔西——东德臭名昭著的情报机构相提并论，企图将她描画成一个在面临德国隐私被美国侵犯时天真或软弱的形象。

默克尔在九月赢得连任，但窃听丑闻并未过去。每一次新的泄密都会在某些地方引起新的愤怒。美国涉嫌监视巴西及墨西哥的领导人，以及欧盟办事处。10月21日，法国报纸《世界报》报道了美国大规模对法国公民进行监听。随后，法国外交部长洛朗·法比尤斯立即在巴黎召见了美国驻法大使。《世界报》称，美国国家安全局记录了2017年12月10日至2013年1月8日之间7030万项法国电话数据，并收集了成千上万个法国的电话记录。美国国家安全局的目标似乎是涉嫌恐怖主义的人，但同时也是与法国商业、政治有联系的人。法国总统奥朗德致电奥巴马，要求奥巴马对此作出解释。

仅仅两日后，奥巴马接到了默克尔的来电。这也许是他在这个话题中最尴尬的一次谈话。默克尔要求得知美国是否监视了她的通信。德国杂志《明镜周刊》向德国情报机构询问此事，由此默克尔发现了重重疑点。

奥巴马回应说，现在没有，以后也不会监视她。这句话明显地回避了“过去”。德国人不得不猜想他们的总理已经被监视了，并想象接下来会有什么发现。

默克尔的发言人说，这样的监听“严重违反了盟友间的信任”。德国外交部长基多·威斯特威勒紧随他的法国同事之后，在柏林愤怒地召见了美国大使。在德国及其他欧洲国家，美国的形象自泄密以来就在不断下降。由于美国仍未澄清整个窃听事件，许多欧盟谈判代表都对与美国商议免税贸易协定失去了热情。

就在默克尔致电奥巴马当天，欧洲议会投票建议欧盟暂停一项与美国共用资金转移数据库的约定。在欧洲领导人到达布鲁塞尔准备10月24日的欧盟最新峰会时，美国窃听事件并未正式提上议程，虽然许多人迫切想认真谈谈这件事。