German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government said that President Obama’s pledge for new restrictions on mass surveillance by U.S. spy agencies so far offered “no answer” to Germany’s concerns over spying.

The government in Berlin will “look very closely” at the consequences of Obama’s Jan. 17 speech addressing the matter while talks between the two countries’ intelligence officials continue, Merkel’s chief spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters today. Norbert Roettgen, the chairman of the lower house foreign affairs committee, said divisions over U.S. surveillance presented a “real problem” in the face of U.S. defense of its bulk data collection.