EU investment body stands by past financial support for Israeli spyware firm
· EUobserver‘We continue to back cyber security because we consider it’s quite an important matter. It’s about protecting citizens,” said Gauthier Monjanel, an advisor to chief executive at the fund (Source: Forgemind Webuse)
EU investment body stands by past financial support for Israeli spyware firm
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By Nikolaj Nielsen,
Brussels
,
The European Investment Fund has no reservations about financing spyware deployed by democratic governments and law enforcement agencies, even as evidence indicates such technologies have, at times, been used to target journalists and members of civil society.
“We continue to back cyber security because we consider it’s quite an important matter. It’s about protecting citizens,” said Gauthier Monjanel, an advisor to chief executive at the fund, on Thursday (7 May).
Speaking to European lawmakers in the civil liberties committee, Monjanel said that a past investment that indirectly ended up at Israeli Paragon Solutions had met all edibility criteria.
“This company developed lawful interception technology focused on law enforcement,” he said, stressing that any illegal use of the technology remains unacceptable.
Paragon’s “Graphite” spyware was used to hack two immigration activists and a journalist in 2024 in Italy. WhatsApp later revealed that the same spyware had targeted 90 journalists around the world.
Belgian media outlet Apache had initially disclosed the money trail between the European Investment Fund (EIF) and Paragon, sparking outrage among civil rights defenders.
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‘We continue to back cyber security because we consider it’s quite an important matter. It’s about protecting citizens,” said Gauthier Monjanel, an advisor to chief executive at the fund (Source: Forgemind Webuse)
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Author Bio
Nikolaj Nielsen joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.