Discussions on the regulation on the removal of terrorist content within the hour will not resume “this week”. “We are now aiming for the end of November”, a source told EUROPE on Tuesday 17 November.
Postponed by a week last Thursday, the new meeting between the EU Council and the European Parliament, which was considered to be a conclusive point, is in the end having trouble coming together.
At the end of October, the European Parliament was quite open to the latest compromise proposal on the cross-border nature of an order to remove terrorist content within the hour: the authority of the Member State where the server or hosting platform concerned was hosted had the capacity to confirm actively within 24 hours by producing a positive decision and no longer a single ‘tacit’ confirmation. It could also refuse the withdrawal order, but in both cases, the content in question was made inaccessible while the decision was being made.
“Our openness on the cross-border aspect depended on additional safeguards received in exchange”, explains a parliamentary source close to the dossier, “but what has been proposed does not suit us”.
The European Parliament, behind its Polish negotiator, Patryk Jaki (ECR), rejects offers on the notions of definitions and ‘referrals’.
The outright deletion of these referrals - used in particular by Europol as a mechanism for direct alerts on terrorist content from servers and platforms - had been proposed to the European Parliament in exchange for an amended text on these referrals, including those from Europol, and on the hosting servers or platforms, retaining the final decision on the withdrawal of the content.
According to another source, it is also in the EU Council that things have stalled, as not all Member States agree to give this right of active confirmation. For some, the withdrawal order issued by a national authority cannot suffer any delay or administrative complication in its implementation.
Link to the briefing note: https://bit.ly/3pDKNFJ (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)