European Parliament to launch inquiry into U.S. surveillance programs

STRASBOURG, France, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The European Parliament on Thursday voted to conduct an in-depth inquiry into U.S. surveillance programs in the wake of allegations of the bugging of EU buildings and other spying claims.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) demonstrated serious concerns over the U.S. surveillance project code-named PRISM and other programs and urged the U.S. authorities to provide full information on these allegations, while calling for more protection for whistleblowers.

The results of the inquiry are to be presented by the end of this year, according to the resolution passed during the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg, France.

MEPs also called on the European Commission, the EU Council and member states to consider suspending current air passenger and bank data deals in the case of the U.S. refusing to reveal the extent of its spying operations in Europe.

Calls from some MEPs to suspend talks on the EU-U.S. free trade agreement were however rejected during the plenary session. The Parliament still has a veto power on the deal to be negotiated by the European Commission on behalf of all EU member states.

Europe was enraged when U.S. officials admitted the existence of spying operations last month. France was however the only member state that had so far called for a suspension on the free trade negotiations.

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