NSA Listened as Aides Secretly Briefed Merkel on Euro-Finance Plan

WikiLeaks revealed that the US National Security Agency eavesdropped secret briefing where the German Chancellor was given advice on a European financial stability plan.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US National Security Agency (NSA) bugged German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she was given advice on a European financial stability plan from two close advisers in 2011, a document published on Wednesday by WikiLeaks revealed.

“Two of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's advisers — Helge Hassold and Albrecht Morgenstern — advised her on 28 August [2011] that the current draft of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) appeared satisfactory,” the top secret NSA report on US intelligence intercepts said.

The advisers expressed satisfaction with the EFSF draft because it included most of the decisions taken at the European Union summit on July 21, 2011 and urged by Merkel, the report said.

Hassold and Morgenstern were only concerned about that the draft lacked sufficient detail in spelling out the conditions under which its financial support packages would be offered.

The two advisors also pointed out that new financial supports pledged in the EFSF document did not include interest expenses that had grown because of the debt extensions granted to Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

The WikiLeaks files follow recent revelations of Merkel’s discussions with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy on the Greek economic crisis, as well as her private conversations with a personal assistant and other top German ministers over several years.

They also follow April 2015 revelations of Germany’s BND intelligence service spying on European citizens at the behest of the NSA.