The European Parliament on July 9 allowed the warrantless mass scanning of private online messages—known as “Chat Control 1.0”—to resume through 2028 without ever assembling a majority to pass it. In fact, majorities voted against it: 314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions. It advanced anyway.
The trick is procedural. Instead of requiring an affirmative vote, the obligation became a requirement to vote against it. The text could be rejected or amended only by an absolute majority of all 720 MEPs—361 votes. Opponents fell short, so the regulation was “deemed adopted.” An amendment to confine the scanning to court-identified suspects, supported by a 322 to 255 majority, died the same way. Twice the chamber’s working majority was overridden by undemocratic means.
The same extension had already been rejected twice in March; its backers in the center-right EPP, citing a child-"protection gap,” brought it back—revived by Parliament President Roberta Metsola and rushed under urgent procedure in the last days before the summer recess, when attendance is thinnest and 361 votes hardest to muster. Former MEP Patrick Breyer, among the measure’s most dogged critics, called it a procedural trick: “The fact that Chat Control is moving forward against the will of the majority of voting MEPs is a farce and damages democracy.”
