Inter-institutional negotiations in the European Union on the removal of terrorist content online within one hour will resume on 10 December, several sources have confirmed. A meeting of shadow rapporteurs in the European Parliament was scheduled for Tuesday 8 December.
The trilogue meetings were postponed several times for various reasons (including health reasons, on the part of the European Parliament rapporteur), but work continued, with the German Presidency of the EU Council forwarding new proposals to the European Parliament, notably on cross-border removal orders and appeals for national authorities.
The rapporteur’s office was not able to say at 8 December if this trilogue would be the last; for Patrick Breyer (Greens/EFA, Germany) the meeting on 10 December would be “decisive”, stressing that if an agreement was reached, the EU would have an anti-terrorism tool that would be dangerous for freedom of expression on the Internet. He criticised the possibility of using automated filters proactively (to detect terrorist content) and the fact that an authority in one member state could order a service provider or host in another member state to delete content, without the authority of the country where the targeted company is located having a clear right of appeal, according to him. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)