“We urge the authorities to cooperate quickly with the courts to allow maximum transparency” in these cases, said Dutch Conservative MEP Jeroen Lenaers, chairman of the European Parliament’s committee responsible for investigating computer espionage, during a meeting. of a press conference in Madrid.

“Victims of espionage deserve more information and transparency,” added Lenaers, pointing out that “it seems that the legal framework in Spain is in line with the protection of fundamental rights.”

The delegation, made up of ten MEPs from six countries, had previously visited Israel, Poland, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary, and in Spain met with the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Pascual Navarro.

The Pegasus scandal erupted in Spain in April 2022, when the Canadian organization Citizen Lab published a report indicating that between 2017 and 2020 the phones of more than 60 people in the orbit of Catalan independence were infected with this Israeli spy program.

During a closed-door parliamentary committee in May last year, Paz Esteban, then director of Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI), admitted that 18 pro-independence leaders were being spied on, including the current Catalan regional president, Pere Aragonès, but it was done with court permission.

Esteban ended up being removed from his position. Previously, it was learned that the phones of the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, of his Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, and of his Interior Chief, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, were also infected with Pegasus, during a an “external attack”, maintained the government without further details.

However, the Spanish press then pointed the finger at Morocco, and Lenaers said in Madrid on Tuesday that, although it lacked “evidence”, the Arab country was “a plausible candidate” as the perpetrator of the espionage.

“We even have interlocutors from our mission today and yesterday who even refused to comment on possible links with Morocco for fear of reprisals from the Moroccan authorities. This already makes me plausible,” explained Lenaers.

The spy case of Sánchez and his government is before the courts, as is the spy case of the Catalan separatists.

The Catalan president appeared on Tuesday before the European Parliament committee which traveled to Madrid, assuring that the espionage with Pegasus “is a new episode of dirty war against those of us who defend the independence of Catalonia” .

“The democratic institutions and the representatives of the citizens of Catalonia have been treated like criminals”, lamented Aragonès.

An interim European Parliament report published in November found that spyware had been used “illegitimately” in at least four EU countries (Poland, Hungary, Greece and Spain), and called for a “moratorium” on such technology.