The hacking of a phone belonging to a close ally of French President Emmanuel Macron who is now an MEP in Brussels, has exposed a “serious security risk” at the heart of the EU, a Brexiteer has warned.
Nathalie Loiseau is one of two elected officials whose device has been infected with the Israeli-made spyware type Pegasus, she confirmed yesterday. Bulgarian social-democrat lawmaker Elena Yoncheva was also targeted.
The European Parliament is braced for cyberattacks and foreign interference prior to June’s continent-wide elections.
Reform UK deputy leader Ben Habib said the revelations were highly embarrassing for the bloc, and Ms Loiseau herself, not least because she is the chairwoman of the European Parliament’s defence sub-committee.
The former Brexit Party MEP, a frequent critic of the concept of a European defence force touted by Mr Macron, among others, said: “The EU is a danger to the defence of Europe. Its provenance is that of bureaucratic trade body, albeit one which has morphed but into a supranational state, and it has no history or experience.
“In its pursuit of statehood, it aspires to have its own armed forces and command structures over member states.
“But its foreign policy decisions are almost always wrong and it trips up at every step.”
The EU’s “foreign policy blunders” were “eye-catching”, Mr Habib insisted.
He said: “From trying to step round US sanctions on Iran, to flirting with Ukraine and then not being there in its hour of need, to opposing the Anglosphere in nearly all our decisions, the EU is wrong.
“Now it seems it cannot even get basic technology right. It is a serious security breach for members of the Defence European Parliament’s subcommittee to be found with spyware on their phones.
“Chief among them was Nathalie Loiseau of Brexit fame. Yes, the one who compared Brexit to her pussycat, always meowing to go out but then not doing so when the door is opened.”
In 2019, at the height of EU-UK wrangling three years after the 2016 referendum, Ms Loiseau, 59, then French minister for European Affairs, joked in a private post on social media about having a cat called Brexit.
She quipped: “He wakes me up every morning meowing to death because he wants to go out, and then when I open the door he stays put, undecided, and then glares at me when I put him out”. It subsequently emerged that she did not in fact have a cat.
He added: “She was right about May’s opposition to Brexit, but when it comes to defence the UK is a tiger compared to the pussy of an EU.”
Speaking to Politico, Ms Loiseau said she was weary of MEPs claiming they were not legitimate targets for hacking because they did not have “anything interesting to say”.
She added: “They are sort of reluctant to talk about their privacy.”
Referring to her decision to email fellow committee members to urge them to contact the assembly’s IT security technicians, she added: “They don’t want to have their phones checked. So that’s why I did something a little more formal.”
