Salta al contenuto principale


Council to greenlight Chat Control – Take action now!


The Belgian Council presidency seems set to greenlight Chat Control on Wednesday 19 June. This confirms fears: the proponents of Chat Control want to exploit the situation after the European Elections, …

Warning signs and text: "Chat Control imminent! Council of the EU set to greenlight Chat Control on Wednesday, 19 June. Take action NOW! #ChatControl, patrick-breyer.de/en" and the logo of the European Pirates
The Belgian Council presidency seems set to greenlight Chat Control on Wednesday 19 June. This confirms fears: the proponents of Chat Control want to exploit the situation after the European Elections, in which there is less public attention and the European Parliament is not yet constituted. If Chat Control makes it through the Council now, there is a risk that the Parliament in its new composition will not fight as fiercely as before and surrender our previous wins.

So you must take action now. More than ever, the resistance of civil society against Chat Control is crucial. There are many things you can do and in this post I explain how. The three most important steps are:

  • Contact your government and tell it to vote against Chat Control (see contact details below)
  • Raise the alarm online. Don’t let the Council presidency get away with pushing this through silently now
  • Meet at least one person offline and plan an action together

Below in the post you will find a current timeline.

Contact your government

Now it is important to show that civil society is alert. The best way to do so is contacting the ‘permanent representatives’, so the official representation of your government to the EU.

You can find the contact details for all permanent representations on the website „EU Whoiswho“.

Tell your government that the current draft on Chat Control is unacceptable. Be polite but also resolute and ask them to clearly voice their disagreement against the proposal and to vote against the proposal.

Further, ask them to insist on a formal vote and for the abstentions to be properly counted by the presidency. (Otherwiese, in the Permanent Representatives Committee, there sometimes is a procedural trick, where a presidency does not actively ask for abstentions, even though they would have to be counted as “No” votes otherwise).

Timeline

On Thursday, 13 June, ministers were set to debate a progress report. (Find a recording here) The Belgian Council presidency announced that they will present a new compromise proposal afterwards. According to documents leaked by netzpolitik.org, the session to seek an agreement on it will already take place on Wednesday, 19 June.

So we all need to take action as soon as possible and demand a firm “No” by our governments against the Chat Control proposal to ward off this attempt to greenlight Chat Control in the Permanent Representatives Committee on 19 June. Time is pressing. This may be our last chance to stop Chat Control!


patrick-breyer.de/en/council-t…

reshared this