On Monday, MEPs approved a PEGA report in committee recommending strict conditions on the use of spyware to protect citizens from illegal surveillance, AFP and Agerpres said.

The vote comes nearly two years after the revelations by a consortium of 17 international media outlets. The group found that the Pegasus spy software, developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, would have allowed the numbers of at least 180 journalists, 600 politicians, 85 human rights activists and 65 business leaders to be tracked in different countries.

The PEGA report’s recommendations still need to be voted on by MEPs in a plenary session of parliament, possibly by the summer. The commission of inquiry has discovered “undemocratic and illegal” practices of espionage in several EU countries, said the rapporteur of the European Parliament, Sofia in ‘t Veld.

The investigation focused, in particular, on the use of spyware in Poland, Hungary, Greece and Spain.

“Some governments carelessly refer to +national security+, which is actually a lawless zone where citizens remain unprotected,” the speaker lamented.

The European Parliament made harsh accusations against the Commission headed by Ursula von der Leyen

“Despite the scale of the scandal, the European Commission and the European Council did not take any measures. Their inertia and silence make them accomplices,” she condemned, asking them to “immediately implement the parliament’s recommendations.”

Sofia in ‘t Veld also noted that “justice has not been done” for the victims of EU spying programs.

The report calls for strict regulations on the use and sale of spyware and calls for close cooperation with other countries. It is the result of an investigation that has lasted more than a year, with “extreme politicization of the case, national interference and a clear lack of cooperation from member states and the European Commission,” MEP Saskia Bricmont (Greens/ALE) said in a statement.

She assessed the final recommendations as “ambitious”.

“We are calling for a set of very strict conditions for the use of Pegasus-type spyware. These frameworks should be implemented by the end of the year and de facto correspond to the moratorium. We also demand the creation of a European technological laboratory on the model of Citizen Lab, especially to provide assistance to citizens,” explained the Belgian MEP.