On Thursday 2 March, the Polish government asked the European Commission to justify its decision, taken on 23 February, to suspend the use of the social network TikTok (see EUROPE 13128/28) on its corporate devices in order to strengthen the institution’s cybersecurity, Polish media outlet Rzeczpospolita reported. In addition, the Polish government has stated that it will continue to use TikTok, including for electoral purposes.
The Commission’s decision, which set a deadline of 15 March for the removal of the TikTok app from its corporate devices, was quickly followed by other European institutions.
The European Union External Action Service (EEAS) took the same decision a few days after the Commission, and the European Parliament followed suit on 28 February, requesting that the social network’s app be removed from its corporate devices by 20 March.
Beijing reacted curtly to the Commission’s decision, saying that it “undermined the confidence of the international community”. “The EU claims to be the most open market in the world, but recently it has taken restrictive measures and unreasonably suppressed companies from other countries for internal security reasons”, said a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)