Controversial “chat control”: negotiations in the EU have failed for the time being
Published: Thursday, Jun 20th 2024, 15:30
Zurück zu Live Feed
The negotiations between the EU member states on the controversial "chat control" in the fight against child pornography have failed for the time being, partly due to German concerns. It had become apparent that a sufficient majority would not be reached, according to the Belgian Council Presidency on Thursday. The Presidency therefore decided to remove the item from the agenda.
The basis for the plans is a proposal by the EU Commission, according to which providers such as Google or Facebook could, under certain circumstances, be obliged to use software to search their services for depictions of child abuse. This had already been adapted with compromise proposals. However, critics have repeatedly spoken of "chat control" and fear mass surveillance.
New attempt could be a long time coming
Hungary could try again to reach an agreement between the EU member states during its upcoming EU Council Presidency from July. The countries would then have to negotiate the final text of the law with the Parliament and the Commission before the new rules could come into force.
German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann saw the fact that the vote planned for Thursday was canceled as a success of the German government's efforts. The FDP politician said that he was pleased "that my concerns about the rule of law have fallen on fertile ground". It was good that the German government was speaking with one voice on this issue and taking a joint stance against the mass scanning of private communications and data in the cloud - even encrypted ones - without cause.
Germany wanted to vote against
The German Ministry of the Interior said that it was assumed that the vote had been canceled due to German opposition. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser had declared on Wednesday that Germany would vote against the Commission's proposal in its current form.
At the beginning of the week, 36 politicians from Europe also appealed to the EU member states to vote against the plans in an open letter. They were convinced that the proposed measures were incompatible with fundamental European rights, according to the letter.
©Keystone/SDA
German 
English 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic