Disagreement in the EU persists over the proposal to combat online child abuse material. The issue was pulled from Thursday's ambassadorial meeting in Brussels at the last minute.
The European Commission's so-called CSAM proposal has been a hot potato since Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson presented it in May 2022.
She sees it as necessary to get tech giants to act against the spread of films and images showing children being sexually abused – abbreviated as CSAM in English. Critics call the proposal a "chat control" and believe that parts of the measures are too drastic and threaten both privacy and freedom of speech.
No Majority
The EU countries have also had widely differing opinions on the proposal, which has led to the delay in the process.
Not even the compromise proposal put forward by the current presidency, Belgium, has achieved unity.
The Belgians had hoped for an agreement at the ambassadorial level on Thursday, but instead pulled the CSAM point from the agenda just before the meeting.
"In the last hours, it became clear that a necessary qualified majority would not be achievable. The presidency therefore decided to withdraw the question from today's agenda and continue the consultations in a calm atmosphere," a source in the presidency reports.
Continuing in the Autumn?
When the proposal can be taken up again is unclear. Belgium has only a little over a week left of its presidency in the EU Council of Ministers – and already has a packed agenda with other issues that the ambassadors need to handle.
Sweden is among the countries that were willing to support the compromise already on Thursday. However, much remains to be done before the proposal can become a reality.
If and when the member states agree, compromise negotiations will also need to be held with the European Parliament, which agreed on its view of the proposal as early as last winter.
The Parliament, however, wants to see a comprehensive rewriting of the proposal, which means that the negotiations are likely to drag on – if they can be concluded at all.
CSAM is an abbreviation for material containing child sexual abuse.
To combat child sexual abuse online, the European Commission proposed new legislation in May 2022, making it mandatory for online service providers to conduct risk assessments to determine the risk of being exploited by perpetrators. National authorities can then issue orders for the inspection of online services and issue removal orders.
Since the processing of the proposal has dragged on, the current rules on voluntary inspection have been extended until 2026, pending an agreement between the EU member states and the European Parliament.
