Since many major EU countries share their classified intelligence and surveillance systems with the US (and the reverse) this seems more like political speech than reality. The real reason is to preserve what’s left of tech in the EU but that doesn’t exactly sound as good.

Almost all major countries have surveillance programs. They are perhaps necessary to preserve national security. The hope of democratic countries is to have enough checks and balances on those powers to keep them limited to national security interests and to prevent abuse.