Outrage in Europe Grows Over Spying Disclosures

By STEVEN ERLANGER, NYT

PARIS — Damage from the disclosures of United States spying on its European and Asian allies spread on Monday, threatening negotiations on a free trade agreement, hurting President Obama’s standing in Europe and raising basic questions of trust among nations that have been on friendly terms for generations.

President François Hollande of France issued some of the harshest language yet from a European leader on the issue, telling reporters that “we cannot accept this kind of behavior between partners and allies” and suggesting that talks on the trade pact, scheduled to start next week, should be delayed at least until questions over the spying issue were resolved and confidence restored.

It was not so much the fact of the spying as its sheer scale that alarmed European leaders and others here. Elmar Brok, an outspoken German who is chairman of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said that “the spying has reached dimensions that I did not think were possible for a democratic country.” He said the United States had “lost all balance — George Orwell is nothing by comparison.”

While some of the comments were political and from leaders of countries that also spy with great energy against their allies, there was a new tone of disappointment with President Obama and concern that the American intelligence system had become too large for careful political oversight.

(More here.)