Hi everyone,
Thanks so much Eduardo for this little nudge - indeed, as the
chat control WG know, we are in quite a delicate position with the
upcoming Council vote on the CSA Regulation, and we are working
hard to try to keep this file blocked. So, any extra help is most
welcome! To give a bit of extra information:
On 14 October, national justice/home affairs ministers will
publicly vote on whether to finally adopt an official position of
the Council. There is also a non-public pre-vote on 8 October,
where countries will share their voting intention. In terms of
what exactly they will be voting on,
it
seems like it will be the Council text from July (it's
bad).
If successful on 8 and 14 October, the draft law can move forward
and final negotiations with the EU Parliament can begin. This puts
digital rights in a very precarious position, because
even
though the Parliament has a good position, we know that
several of the lead Members of Parliament (especially MEPs
Zarzalejos and Vautmans) still want chat control measures and plan
to use negotiations to achieve this.
Here's our overall sense right now of the various countries'
positions based on leaked minutes from the most recent working
party meeting (12 Sept) plus additional conversations / insights
since then:
Countries that are opposing the Danish chat control text:
- Austria - strongly opposing
- Poland - strongly opposing
- Luxembourg - strongly opposing
- Germany - officially at least they are still opposing, but as
noted, we have concerns. Needs support to stay strong
- Estonia - but needs support to stay opposing
- Czechia - but needs support to stay opposing
- Slovenia - newly publicly opposing
Countries that are undecided, abstaining or ambivalent - need to
be pressured:
- Italy – undecided, we think there is a chance for an
abstention
- Finland – undecided / rumoured to be opposing, we think there
is a decent chance for opposition
- Netherlands – they are confirmed abstention, this cannot
change in time for the vote
- Latvia – rumoured to be opposing, but the last official notes
showed them supporting
- Greece – silent, but have supported in the past
Countries that have only recently started supporting the Danish
text, or that support it but have had concerns, so could maybe be
convinced to change position, or at least abstain:
- Belgium - recent support
- France - recent support
- Lithuania
- Croatia
- Malta
- Portugal
Countries that strongly support the Danish text (but should still
be criticised for this):
- Denmark
- Ireland
- Spain
- Bulgaria
- Hungary
- Romania
- Sweden
- Cyprus
Best wishes,
Ella
--
ELLA
JAKUBOWSKA (she/her)
Head
of Policy
+32 (0) 474 05 77 44
EUROPEAN
DIGITAL RIGHTS
Rue
Belliard 12, B-1040 Brussels
www.edri.org | @[email protected]
On 9/29/25 14:13, Eduardo Santos wrote:
Hi all,
If you're on the battlefronts of ChatControl and this is an
active political issue in your country: well done & keep it
up, this email isn't for you :)
But if you haven't felt it closely, felt drained by it over the
years, or stepped back for any reason, RIGHT NOW would be the
best moment to become active and act.
We need to mobilize across all EU countries, targeting both
press and national governments (represented in the Council). On
October 14 the Council is expected to vote, but there is also a
pre-meeting the week before that could already settle the
outcome. So this means that we have to act right now.
The key country is Germany, but people are already organized and
doing their best there, and now we need to apply pressure to
other countries as well, because we might need a few more of
them to become at least skeptical and not confident enough to
proceed ahead with this legislation.
The momentum is also on our side. The campaign
https://fightchatcontrol.eu/,
although not from EDRi, managed to bring ChatControl to the
public debate in some countries, at the last minute. So let's
try to take advantage of this momentum.
If you're reading this, it probably means that you are the one
of the best-positioned people in your country to push this
forward in the short time we have. Assess the local political
context, possible allies, and define what action you can take
that could be most helpful to the goal. Remember: you don't need
to convince the government to adhere 100% to our position, just
planting doubt on their own position can already make the
difference :)
And don't stress out if what you can do does not seem much, if
you already tried before with no success, or if the chances are
slim. Do it anyway. We are counting with the collective and
network effects, here. And, who knows, maybe we can get lucky
and a few of us actually do manage to change some minds.
For guidance, you can find plenty of information on the mailing
list, and we have a bunch of ChatControl nerds (aka experts)
ready to help. Just reach out.
Thanks!
Eduardo
