The European Parliament's President Is Trying to Override Its Vote
The Parliament rejected the scanning rules in March. Now its own president is asking member states to pass them anyway.
In March the European Parliament voted against extending the rules that let providers voluntarily scan private messages. The vote went 311 to 228 against. Talks with the Council on tighter limits had already broken down. The rules expired on 3 April, and that should have settled the question for now.
It hasn’t.
Roberta Metsola, the Maltese president of the Parliament, has asked EU member states to approve the same extension the Parliament already rejected. Diplomats told Politico the move is without precedent. Her office says it followed a request from a meeting of the political group leaders.
We have followed this proposal since the first push to scan private messages, through the Council making voluntary scanning permanent, to the repeat vote in March. The pattern is always the same. When the answer is no, someone finds another way to force it through. First it was repeated votes. Now it is the president going around her own Parliament to the Council.
The proposal hasn’t improved. Scanning private messages breaks end-to-end encryption, builds infrastructure that can be repurposed and treats every citizen as a suspect. Voluntary scanning is the on-ramp. Once it is normal, mandatory scanning is the next request.
Markéta Gregorová, an MEP who has campaigned against the proposal, said the Parliament’s verdict was already clear and that going around it undermines its own position. She is right. A parliament that votes no should not be overruled by its own president.
None of this is settled, and the pressure won’t stop on its own. If this matters to you, tell your representatives that a vote should mean something.