EU Parliament Votes to Fast-Track Chat Scanning Law It Already Killed Three Months Ago

EU lawmakers voted 331-304 to rush through an urgency procedure reviving the expired Chat Control regulation, bypassing standard committee review with a final vote set for Thursday before the summer recess.

The European Parliament cleared the way Tuesday for the surprise return of Chat Control — the expired EU regulation that permitted platforms to scan private messages without specific suspicion — voting 331 to 304 with 11 abstentions to apply an urgency procedure that fast-tracks a final vote to Thursday.

The vote marks an unprecedented parliamentary maneuver. Parliament had rejected extending the regulation twice earlier this year, letting it expire on 4 April. Rather than accept that outcome, the Council of EU member states drafted a formally "new" law with identical content and pushed it through an expedited procedure that skips committee review entirely. At second reading on Thursday, an absolute majority of all MEPs would be needed to stop or amend it — a deliberately high hurdle.

The narrow majority materialized after the center-left Social Democrats group signaled support, overriding the objections of their own rapporteur. Birgit Sippel, the SPD MEP who led negotiations, had called the maneuver "unfair" and refused to back it. But group discipline prevailed.

Pirate Party MEP Markéta Gregorová described the procedure as a "farce" and a violation of Parliament's own rules. AfD MEP Mary Khan warned that a law already rejected by the chamber was being "revived through the back door using salami tactics."

The push was backed by an urgent letter from four EU Commissioners who warned of a continuing "regulatory gap" in detecting child sexual abuse material, even though major platforms including Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Snap said they would continue voluntary scanning regardless of the law's expiration.

The Council's own Legal Service warned in June that the "voluntary" scanning framework being pursued still constitutes generalized communications surveillance incompatible with Article 7 of the EU Charter absent reasonable suspicion and prior judicial authorization.

Meanwhile, the permanent Chat Control 2.0 regulation — the CSA Regulation under negotiation since 2022 — remains deadlocked. Its fifth trilogue round collapsed on 29 June over the same core dispute: whether suspicionless scanning of private communications should be made permanent.

Sources: heise online, Fight Chat Control