The European Parliament cleared the way for a renewed extension of the so-called “Chat Control” on Tuesday afternoon. With a narrow majority of 331 to 304 votes and eleven abstentions, the MEPs voted for an urgency motion that Parliament President Roberta Metsola had put on the agenda at short notice at the behest of the member states and the EPP group. This allows Parliament to vote again on the controversial plan on Thursday, its last session before the summer break.
The aim of this maneuver: to reinstate the transitional regulation for Chat Control, which expired in April. This exception regulation allowed tech giants like Meta, Google, or Microsoft to voluntarily search private chats, emails, and messenger services for material related to child sexual abuse without specific suspicion. Parliament had not agreed to a renewed extension, and the regulation had therefore expired in April.
The vote was preceded by a back-and-forth, with opponents calling it an unprecedented parliamentary maneuver. Pirate MEP Markéta Gregorová accused the conservative European People's Party (EPP) of engaging in a farce and violating its own rules of procedure. She appealed in vain to her colleagues to vote against Chat Control again. Metsola narrowly defended the procedure, stating she was adhering to all rules.
