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One of the four vice-chairs of the special committee of inquiry set up by the European Parliament to investigate the allegations on the use of the Pegasus surveillance software[/B], Cypriot MEP from the Left Group George Georgiou has been elected.
A statement by the AKEL MEP stressed the importance of the election "as the new committee's investigations will also put Cyprus under the microscope in order to establish whether it complied with the procedures provided for by EU law regarding the management of the Pegasus issue".
The committee of inquiry is expected to submit its final report to plenary within 12 months, together with its recommendations on how to manage the use of surveillance software in the EU and protect against such practices.
As recently announced by the European Parliament, the committee of inquiry is composed of 38 MEPs from all political groups, and is mandated to "investigate allegations of breaches of EU law in the use of surveillance software, including by Hungary and Poland".
The committee of inquiry will also examine "existing national laws governing surveillance and whether the Pegasus spying software was used for political purposes, for example against journalists, politicians and lawyers."
According to Parliament's rules of procedure, a committee of inquiry has a term of twelve months and can be extended twice for a period of three months.
The establishment of this committee of inquiry, as well as the setting up of two special committees on external interference (including misinformation) and on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, and their composition, were decided by Parliament during the March plenary sessions.
As stated in the MEP's statement. Georgiou had noted in his intervention during the debate on the issue in plenary in early May that the use of such technologies "is not only limited to authoritarian regimes but also by democratic governments", which he said "go after politicians, activists, journalists, political dissidents", thus undermining key pillars of democracy - freedom of the press, the presumption of innocence, the right to privacy, the right to freedom of expression and freedom of association.
The European Parliament should take action to curb the global spyware industry, he added, proposing for example "a moratorium on their sale and transfer until a global regime with transparent requirements based on the rule of law is established" and the introduction of a right for victims to sue governments and companies involved.
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