On Monday 11 January, the members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) approved the interinstitutional agreement reached on 10 December (see EUROPE 12620/11) on removing online terrorist content within an hour, by 54 votes to 13, with one abstention. The Greens/EFA group warned last week that it would vote against the text.
The regulation, which needs to be definitively adopted by the Council of the EU, will enable terrorist content to be removed within an hour of being posted. A removal order may be issued to a host in a Member State by another national authority, although the competent authority in the country where the host is located will have the right to object.
It was also decided that automated filters to detect terrorist content online would not be a mandatory measure, as companies could use other measures.
Fabienne Keller (France) welcomed the vote on behalf of the Renew Europe group as “a significant breakthrough” in the fight against terrorism.
The S&D group and shadow rapporteur Marina Kaljurand (Estonia) welcomed an agreement that “enables the removal of terrorist content while upholding important fundamental rights protections, which were a key red line”. “Our group has ensured that the regulation will not include any obligation to use automated filtering, and that educational, journalistic, artistic or research content will be protected”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)