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EU to seek talks with U.S. over spying

25 October 2013 02:38 (UTC +04:00)

"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.

Britain also agreed with the initiative in spite of its close ties with the United States, Van Rompuy added.

France and Germany proposed during the summit to hold talks with the United States to settle the spying scandal by the end of the year, while inviting all the other EU member states to join the initiative, Van Rompuy said.

The alleged U.S. spying on its European allies partly dominated the summit that had been planned for talks about digital market and other social and economic issues.

On Thursday, Berlin summoned the U.S. 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 U.S. conduct of bugging her phone was "unacceptable." She had called U.S. 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 U.S. spying on millions of French phone calls.

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