Post #3701604

@RnDanger@infosec.exchange @SamantazFox@infosec.exchange @soatok@furry.engineer This is not unlike bicameralism in Poland - when the upper house amends or refuses to pass a law, the lower house needs to vote with an absolute majority of 50% of the total number of members to overturn the decision. The EU's "upper house" is the EU Council, a conference of representatives of the 27 member states' governments - which tend to support doing government control things in the absence of strong conviction to the contrary or equally strong pushback. As I understand it, things went like this: At the end of 2025, the Commission introduced a bill to extend Chat Control 1.0. The Council endorsed that proposal in January. In March, the Parliament approved an amended version that would not allow untargeted surveillance by a significant majority. The center-right EPP group forced a second vote before the existing regulation could expire, but the proponents of scanning lost again. Then with trilogue negotiations on 2.0, the permanent measure, deadlocked, the EPP and Council deployed a new trick to get 1.0 restored - the Council voted 26-1 (Italy being the only dissenter) to rewrite the bill back to how it was, and then on Tuesday the EPP group requested a vote to expedite the procedure and skip the committee stage in the Parliament's second reading. All was timed so that the crucial absolute majority vote would come in the last voting block before the Parliament's summer recess, counting on enough opposing MEPs having already made other plans, I suppose. And indeed, there were fewer voters overall than on Tuesday.