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A parliament votes against it — and yet chat control is coming anyway. And the press? It calmly keeps silent.

What actually happened

The vote concerned the extension of the so-called "voluntary chat control" – that exemption from the ePrivacy Directive which allows providers like Google or Meta to scan their users' unencrypted communications for depictions of abuse. One can argue about the matter, and one should. But what cannot be argued about are the figures.

314 members of parliament voted against the Council's text. 276 in favour. 17 abstained. A clear, simple majority against chat control. And yet it is now considered adopted.

This was made possible by a manoeuvre that can, without exaggeration, be described as a circumvention of the majority principle. The proposal had already been rejected twice before. Instead of declaring it settled as a result, Parliament President Roberta Metsola of the European People's Party (EPP) – the group to which the CDU and CSU also belong – prompted the EU Council to reintroduce its rejected text unchanged at the end of June. The way had previously been paved for this via an urgency procedure. This placed the decision in a constellation akin to a second reading. And there a decisive, inverted logic applies: it is not the supporters who need a majority, but the opponents. Anyone wishing to overturn the Council's position needs not 296, but an absolute majority of 360 votes.

314 were against. 46 votes were missing. And because they were missing, a law that the majority of elected members rejected is deemed adopted.

That this vote of all things was scheduled for the last sitting day before the summer recess – when traditionally many members have already departed – completes the picture. It is the sort of timing one chooses when one does not want to leave an outcome to the chance of attendance.

Why this is more than a dispute over formalities

One might object: that is simply how the procedure works, the rules apply to everyone. Formally, that is true. But democracy lives not only by the letter of the rules of procedure, but by their spirit. And the spirit of a parliament is to reflect the will of the majority – not to overrule it with a cleverly chosen procedural track.

The reactions from within Parliament itself were correspondingly clear. The Green MEP Markéta Gregorová called the approach "unprecedented." Her group colleague Erik Marquardt spoke of a "black day for civil rights." Former MEP Patrick Breyer, for years perhaps the most tenacious voice against chat control, warned that this was "not a victory for privacy, but a disaster waiting to happen." Fabio de Masi of the BSW put it in an image everyone understands: "You don't open every letter to identify criminals either." And the non-attached member Friedrich Pürner spoke of a "sham parliament, pure and simple." Even the AfD MEP Mary Khan spoke of a "democratic scandal." From left to right, right across the political spectrum: anyone who examined the process was stunned.

The most uncomfortable criticism comes from the child protectors themselves

Those who defend chat control reach almost reflexively for the strongest of all arguments: the protection of children. Anyone opposed, the implication goes, accepts child abuse. That is why it is so revealing that of all organisations, the German Child Protection Association (Deutscher Kinderschutzbund) is among the resolute opponents.

Elena Frense, its specialist officer for media and digital affairs, sums up the contradiction: indiscriminate surveillance "intrudes deeply into everyone's privacy – including that of children." For children and young people, too, have a right to confidential communication – for instance when, in distress, they turn to a trusted person or a counselling service. A state that reads along with every message deprives precisely the weakest of the protected space they most urgently need.

Moreover: the Child Protection Association considers the measure simply unfit for purpose. Abuse material is typically distributed via file-hosting services, not via private messengers. Instead of screening millions of unsuspected people, the association calls for what actually helps: prevention and education, binding security requirements and risk analyses for providers, and a strengthening of case-based, i.e. suspicion-based, investigative work. Child protection and fundamental rights, the message goes, are not opposites – indiscriminate mass surveillance sacrifices both.

And the press?

Here begins the part that troubles me most. A parliament overrules its own majority by means of a procedural trick – that is a democracy-related news story of the first order. One would have expected front-page leads, editorials, persistent probing.

Instead: polished restraint. Where it was reported at all, it happened in the tone of routine. ZDFheute, for instance, ran the headline "EU Parliament votes for extension" – as if it were a normal act of approval. That in truth a majority voted against and merely fell short of an artificially raised threshold vanished into subordinate clauses. The actual work of enlightenment was done by specialist outlets such as netzpolitik.org, individual regional newspapers and a handful of smaller portals – not the major outlets that claim to be the fourth estate.

One need not impute malicious intent to the editorial offices. But that is precisely the problem: no conspiracy is needed for a public to fail to learn what it ought to learn. Complacency suffices. The headline "Extension adopted" instead of "Majority overruled" suffices. And it suffices to write off an unwieldy procedural topic on a holiday Friday as settled.

Why we must not remain silent

What has now been adopted is the "small" chat control – voluntary for the time being, encrypted services excepted. But the mandatory variant with indiscriminate detection orders remains on the agenda. Anyone who believes that this decision has averted the worst misjudges the direction. It is a door-opener, not a full stop.

Hence this text. Not because the protection of children is negotiable – it is not. But because fundamental rights must not be swept away by a procedural trick, against the declared will of the majority, and because a democracy whose public greets this with a shrug loses a part of itself.

A parliament said no by majority. It was nonetheless declared a yes. This must not be allowed to pass – and it certainly must not be passed over in silence.

Sources and evidence

All statements in this article can be verified against the following sources (accessed 13 July 2026). Deliberately mixed: specialist media, leading media and opinion-driven portals – so that the reader can form their own picture.

On the voting result (314 against, 276 in favour, 17 abstentions) and on the procedure:

On the procedural trick, the role of Roberta Metsola (EPP) and the resubmission by the Council:

On the critical voices (Gregorová, Marquardt, Breyer, de Masi, Pürner):

On the position of the German Child Protection Association and the statements by Elena Frense:

On the framing by the leading media (evidence for the press criticism):

  • ZDFheute, "
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