EU Council manoeuvres to resurrect Chat Control 1.0, previously rejected by Parliament
The presidency of the European Parliament and the Cypriot presidency of the Council are seeking to reinstate private message scanning, despite a previous rejection by MEPs. This is a grave and entirely undemocratic manoeuvre.
Chat Control 1.0 is the temporary regime that allows platforms (like Gmail, Messenger...) to scan private messages, as an exception to EU privacy laws and many constitutions that typically prohibit this. It expired on April 3, 2026, when Parliament declined to extend it.
The permanent law, Chat Control 2.0, is currently under negotiation and goes further: including obligations for detection, 'risk mitigation', and age verification. This will serve to legalise and normalise mass scanning and threaten end-to-end encryption. Additionally, there's an attempt to revive 1.0.
Although Parliament terminated 1.0, its president, Roberta Metsola, alongside the Cypriot presidency of the Council, are trying to revive it through the Council, despite MEPs' opposition. POLITICO uncovered this. Metsola requested EU country leaders to have the Council approve the text, despite Parliament's rejection.
The mechanism is subtle. If the Council adopts its position in a first reading, the matter proceeds to a second reading in Parliament, where the rules change in favour of those seeking the extension. A simple majority was sufficient to reject it in the first reading, with 311 votes against 228. In the second, Parliament requires an absolute majority to overturn the Council's text: 361 out of 720 votes, regardless of absenteeism. Failing that, the text passes automatically. Silence equals consent, according to Article 294 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
This trickery inverts how democracy should function. The chamber most removed from democratic elections, the governments gathered in the Council, is used to pressure the chamber we directly elect. The popular will expressed in European ballots is subordinated to a procedural manoeuvre. Legal? Perhaps. Democratic? No. And, coincidentally, negotiations for Chat Control 2.0 are concluding around the same time.