If anybody cares, what actually happened is that an extension of the European Union’s mass surveillance regulation known as Chat Control 1.0 failed to make it out of the European Parliament twice in March. Unable to summon a clear parliamentary majority, advocates (mostly in the centre-right European People’s Party [EPP]) turned to the European Council, which adopted the failed Chat Control 1.0 renewal on 2 July. The Council’s position hardens automatically into law unless the European Parliament can summon an absolute majority to stop it. To forestall any such majority from forming, the EPP on Tuesday moved with member state backing for urgent procedure, angling to force their scheme through in the last days before the summer holiday, after many MEP’s had already left. The parliament narrowly approved the urgent procedure, and in consequence there were not enough votes to stop Chat Control 1.0 when it came for a vote today. Hours ago, a majority of 314 MEPs voted to stop Chat Control against the wishes of the Council, while a minority of 276 voted to let it happen. Because 314 is less than the absolute majority of 361, Chat Control 1.0 passed even though most MEPs present didn’t want it to.
It was a sleazy vote, not least because it’s far from clear this procedural manoeuvre was even appropriate in this case. Also, electronic surveillance is bad, but if we are honest with ourselves this battle was already lost.
Chat Control 1.0 was first instated in 2021 as a temporary exemption to the ePrivacy Directive of the EU, allowing messaging services and online platforms to scan chats and other electronic communications for child sexual abuse material. The exemption expired in April, but various platforms have continued their surveillance with no legal basis in the intervening months. Now their formal permission to scan our private communications has been restored and extended through April 2028. We are, in other words, merely returning to the prior regime....
What’s amazing to me about all of this is this man: [photo]
His name is Manfred Weber, and he’s a Bavarian politician (CSU) who also happens to be president of the pro-surveillance EPP and leader of the EPP faction in the European Parliament. Weber loves electronic surveillance and he has been the driving force behind Chat Control from the beginning. Naturally, Chat Control is something that Weber would have a lot of trouble imposing in Germany, where surveillance is widely deplored and where our Basic Law guarantees as "inviolable" the so-called Briefgeheimnis — "the privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications." From his perch in the European Parliament, however, he has been able to hollow out this core constitutional principle of the Federal Republic from a procedurally rigged vote in Strasbourg, without any domestic debate or anybody in the Bundestag having a single thing to say about it.
This is a very advanced novel form of democracy that we have achieved here in the European Union.
Related:
Manfred Weber 12/27/2025 Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: December 26, 2025
Manfred Weber 03/03/2025 European leaders flamed for 'creepy' pro-Zelenskyy posts that read exactly the same
Manfred Weber 01/24/2024 Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: January 23, 2024
Manfred Weber 12/27/2025 Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: December 26, 2025
Manfred Weber 03/03/2025 European leaders flamed for 'creepy' pro-Zelenskyy posts that read exactly the same
Manfred Weber 01/24/2024 Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: January 23, 2024