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
