A journalist from the Dutch RTL News has Friday and stoemeling participated in a secret online meeting of the 27 European defense ministers.
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A photo on Twitter of the Dutch Minister of Defense Ank Bijleveld. Journalist Daniël Verlaan of RTL News did not need more to participate in the online summit meeting of the European ministers. The photo – which was only online for a short time – showed the login address and five of the six digits of the security code to log into the meeting. It didn’t take much extra effort to guess the last digit. When Verlaan got access to the meeting, there was no additional security.
The European defense ministers were therefore surprised when the head of the journalist suddenly appeared on the screen. European High Representative for Foreign Policy Josep Borrell asked him if he realized he was participating in a secret meeting. “I’m sorry to disturb your meeting, I will now leave the meeting”, replied Verlaan. The meeting was then adjourned.
“A stupid mistake”
“Such a breach is illegal and it will be reported to the authorities, even though no confidential matters have been discussed,” said a spokesman for the European Council. According to observers, the thin protection of such a secret European consultation gives us food for thought: “What if an intelligence service from Russia or China, say, secretly logs into such a meeting?”
The Dutch Ministry of Defense called the incident “a stupid mistake by an employee who accidentally shared a photo with classified information.” The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was not pleased with the stupid move of his Minister of Defense, but nevertheless tried to give it a twist: “Colleague Bijleveld has pointed out to his colleagues that you can never be too careful.”
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