EU Council Sidesteps Parliament to Reactivate Chat Control Before Summer Recess

The EU Council has adopted a fast-track procedure to revive expired messenger-scanning rules, catching the Parliament off guard just days before the summer break. Critics call it a deliberate end-run around democratic oversight.

The European Council has deployed a procedural fast-track to reactivate Chat Control 1.0 — the expired regulation that allowed tech companies to voluntarily scan private messages for illegal content — blindsiding the Parliament days before its summer recess.

The original exemption lapsed on April 3 after the Parliament refused to extend it, following a razor-thin March vote that killed the broader Chat Control 2.0 proposal. For three months, EU citizens enjoyed restored digital correspondence privacy. That window is now closing.

On Thursday, the Council adopted a position on a "new" regulation via written procedure. The text is functionally identical to the expired one — a legislative clone designed to circumvent the formal impossibility of extending a dead law. The draft lands on Parliament's agenda Tuesday as an urgent item.

The timing is strategic. If the plenary approves the accelerated procedure, the final vote falls on the last session day before the holiday recess, when many MEPs have historically already departed. Worse for opponents: it arrives in second reading, meaning an absolute majority of all representatives must vote against it to block — a near-impossible hurdle with a depleted chamber.

The regulation would require tech providers to irrevocably delete scanned content and traffic data within twelve months unless a concrete suspicion is confirmed. But the fundamental objection remains unchanged: scanning private messages — even voluntarily — normalizes mass surveillance infrastructure that encryption was designed to prevent.

German data protection authorities have already called for a permanent end to chat control. The coming week will determine whether the Parliament can rally one last defense of digital letter secrecy, or whether the Council's procedural gambit succeeds.

Sources: Heise Online