歐盟尋求與美國談判間諜活動

The European Union, under a Franco-German initiative, would seek talks with the United States over its alleged spying by the end of this year, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said here in the early hours of Friday.

"All 28 EU member states agreed on the nature of the initiative," Van Rompuy said at the press conference after finishing the first day of a two-day summit.

"The UK has a special relationship [with the US], but they are completely on board," Van Rompuy told reporters that Britain had agreed with the initiative.

France and Germany proposed during the summit to hold talks with the US to seek an agreement or an understanding in the field of secret services following the spying scandal, while inviting all the other EU member states to join the initiative, Van Rompuy said.

Top leaders of EU member states expressed their conviction that the partnership must be based on respect and trust, including with respect to the work and cooperation of secret services, according to a statement adopted during the summit.

"A lack of trust could prejudice the necessary cooperation in the field of intelligence gathering," said the statement.

On Thursday, Berlin summoned the US ambassador over the allegations of spying on the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which was denied by the White House.

Merkel said upon arrival on Thursday afternoon that the US conduct of bugging her phone was "unacceptable." She had called US President Barack Obama on the eve of the summit, warning of the breach of trust

Earlier this week, French President Francois Hollande also asked for an explanation from Obama over the phone, following allegations of US spying on millions of French phone calls.

The fresh round of spying scandals came only months after European media had reported about the US national security agency's bugging EU offices, based on the information leaked by Edward Snowden.

The US spying partly dominated the summit, but EU leaders still managed to reach consensus on plans for the digital market as well as other social and economic issues.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said at the same press conference that Europe should be "cautiously optimistic" with a fragile economic recovery.

簡明釋義：在周五的凌晨，在法國和德倡議下，歐盟將尋求與美國的會談，其中一項議題就是關於斯諾登稜鏡門事件“美國******************歐洲各國的通訊信息”。本周早些時候，法國總統弗朗索瓦·奧朗德還要求奧巴馬在電話中解釋“法國上百萬的電話遭美國監控”的事情。