The European Parliament president’s power play is “without precedent,” diplomats wrote in a note seen by POLITICO.
Sam Clark
Ambassadors on Friday will consider an “invitation of the President of the European Parliament [to] proceed with the Council’s first reading position” on the proposal to allow tech companies to choose to scan for CSAM, said a note by the Cyprus presidency of the Council of the EU dated June 22.
In the note, Cyprus asked capitals to “carefully consider” the invitation, “even if this would be without precedent in the present circumstances.”
Talks between the Parliament and the Council collapsed in March, just days before the temporary legislation was due to expire. Lawmakers in the Parliament later resisted last-ditch pressure from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, four European commissioners, tech giants Meta, Google and Microsoft and numerous children’s charities, eventually voting down an attempt to pass the bill in March by a margin of 311 to 228 with 92 abstentions.
Lawmakers working on the legislation now feel Metsola has gone over their heads to invite the Council to adopt a position that the Parliament had already rejected, according to two Parliamentary aides.
Markéta Gregorová, a Czech lawmaker with the Greens group in the Parliament and shadow lead lawmaker on the law, described herself as “extremely surprised” by the move and said Metsola’s invitation is “unacceptable and undermines the European Parliament position.”
Hilde Vautmans, a Belgian lawmaker with the liberal Renew group and shadow lead lawmaker on the file, said reopening debate on the temporary law is a “political dead end.” “Parliament has rejected it twice, and that will not change,” she said.
