"The monitoring of friends -- this is unacceptable. It can't be tolerated," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday through her spokesman Steffen Seibert. "We are no longer in the Cold War."
"Germany´s Chancellor, Angela Merkel has blasted the United States for spying on European citizens as well as on E.U. diplomats in Washington, New York and at the European Council in Belgium.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/merkel-furious-at-us-spying-and-eu-to-check-offices-for-bugs-a-908859.html
"[B]ut others say that the chancellor will probably be friendly to Obama during their next talk, and not because this is what diplomatic conventions call for, even amid tensions. No, it's because there is some question as to whether Berlin's dismay about the espionage by the National Security Agency (NSA) is really as great as it claims. Could some of the indignation be feigned? Did the revelations really shock the chancellor? And if it did come as a surprise, has German counterintelligence failed miserably?
The opposition doesn't believe that Merkel was unaware of the situation. In an editorial for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this week, Sigmar Gabriel, chairman of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), openly aired the suspicion that Merkel was familiar with at least some of the spying activity. The government has vehemently rejected this accusation as crude campaign bluster.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/how-much-did-merkel-know-about-nsa-spying-in-germany-a-909174.html
"America's National Security Agency works closely with Germany and other Western states on a 'no questions asked'-basis, former NSA employee Edward Snowden said in comments that undermine Chancellor Angela Merkel's indignant talk of "Cold War" tactics.
"They are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other Western states," German magazine Der Spiegel quotes him as saying in an interview published on Sunday that was carried out before he fled to Hong Kong in May and divulged details of extensive secret U.S. surveillance/"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/07/us-usa-security-germany-idUSBRE9660C020130707