Claude Moraes (S&D). - Mr President, we have two very difficult tasks. We have what Ms Reding called the endless task of finding out why the US was spying on the European Union. That will go on forever. Then we have the much deeper issue of the allegations concerning the PRISM and Tempora programmes, and these raise more profound questions for this House.

Five groups will tomorrow agree on something important, namely that all of us recognise national security is a matter for the Member States, but this case shows clearly now – certainly in the eyes of our group – that an EU legal framework for the protection of personal data is no longer a luxury and it is not a constraint: it is a fundamental right. The Union and our political groups were working on this fundamental right before any of these allegations came to light.

This is a matter of vital interest to us and we must make progress on it. That is precisely the spirit of the EU’s data protection package and of the reforms which have been on the table for 18 months. It is clear that some Member States were not moving enthusiastically towards adopting those reforms. So timing is a matter of considerable importance here.

It is true, of course, that Member States have given considerable priority to certain legislation, notably the Data Retention Directive which was negotiated in the record time of six months and which did allow limits on civil liberties. So the Member States did move fast when certain data issues were on the table. I think that shows two things. Firstly, we are on the right track here, in that international legislation is now vital in this area to protect these fundamental rights, and secondly that we need to get the balance right between security for our citizens and the protection of their fundamental freedoms in what is a new Internet era of bulk data transfers.

These allegations will be investigated. We can argue as to how we do it, but for our Group the consensus is now quite correct: we need to investigate and we also need reform on data protection.