US has promised a ban on economic espionage, Germany says…

Source: Europe Online
The United States has verbally assured Germany that a pact to ban mutual spying will include a vow not to snoop for German business secrets, officials said on Wednesday.
Washington has been seeking to calm Germany since whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed large-scale global internet surveillance. There were allegations that Germany‘s embassy and EU offices in Washington had been bugged.
Negotiations for the “no-spy” pact were disclosed on Monday by Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s top aide, Ronald Pofalla, but the US National Security Agency (NSA) has declined to confirm this.
The pact would include promises not to spy on each another‘s diplomatic missions or to conduct “economically related espionage,” Merkel‘s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said.
“A verbal assurance exists from the US side,” he added. “The negotiations have begun.”
Seibert said the talks were being conducted between the heads of the NSA and Germany‘s BND external intelligence agency.
“This will set an example in our cooperation with other intelligence services,” he said. Though there were no direct talks between Germany and Britain on such a pact, Germany was in talks with European Union nations on a similar set of mutual rules.
Germany‘s main exports are cars and engineering products. Their success is attributed to technological innovations that often keep them a step ahead of competing products on the world market.
German companies frequently complain of illicit attempts to steal their “intellectual property.”
Seibert has declined to confirm that the German embassy in Washington was bugged, but said that – if true – it would not be acceptable.