European Parliament will vote in july on inquiry committee on Echelon

Internal wrangling about procedural mistakes and rumours about British attempts to block inquiry.

After a week of internal wrangling in the European Parliament, parliament's president Nicole Fontaine assured that the decision on an inquiry committee on the Echelon spying system will be taken by the plenary session of the European Parliament. The decision will however not be taken this week, as the Greens demanded, but in july.

The Greens accused last week the big political parties of the European Parliament of obstructing the inquiry. The major political parties first rejected the wish to install an inquiry committee and favoured a weaker temporary committee. Then, they asked the parliaments legal service opinion on the mandate for such a committee. The legal service declared last week a temporary committee cannot lead an inquiry. The Conference of Presidents (which unites the leaders of the political groups in Parliament) was unable to decide last week on how to proceed the investigation.

The Greens accused the major political parties of obstruction and asked for a plenary vote this week on the issue. The leader of the Socialist Group, Enrique Baron Crespo, sought to dismiss the Greens proposal on procedural grounds, arguing that at this late stage it could not be added to the parliaments agenda. The rumour is British officials were pressuring Nicole Fountaine and the big political parties to block any probe into the operation of Echelon. But now Fontaine has made it clear the parliaments plenary will vote on the issue in july. The Greens will repeat their demand for a fully-fledged inquiry committee on Echelon. Paul Lannoye, president of the Green Group said: