Tag: eu

US & Qatar Force EU Climate Policy U-Turn – End of the ESG Era?

While former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock calls for a fight against climate-driven global apocalypse at COP30, Brussels is being forced into political restraint by pressure from the US and Qatar. On the horizon, the end of the EU’s grand climate machinations is becoming visible.

November 13, 2025, could mark a turning point in European Union history. We may have witnessed the beginning of the end of European climate socialism. 

Media coverage of the day in Parliament downplayed its significance, focusing instead on the reform of the supply chain law, while fundamental changes unfolded at a different level.

Politically, the event cannot be overstated; perhaps it should even be called a singularity in recent EU policy: The European Parliament paved the way for a dramatic dilution of corporate reporting obligations under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the so-called due diligence rules (CSDDD). The unstoppable march toward a climate dictatorship has been abruptly halted.

The End of the ESG Machine

Advocates of the ESG doctrine—under which private industry is forced by lawmakers to integrate party-circulated environmental and social standards into corporate governance—suffered their first major setback. Reporting and due diligence obligations for companies have been so weakened that previously required climate-aligned transition plans at the corporate level are now eliminated. Responsibility for violations of the remaining rules now rests with national authorities, not Brussels, freeing multinational supply chains from massive oversight. The economy can, to some extent, escape the regulators’ grip—good news.

For companies in the fossil energy sector, new market incentives emerge: exports to Europe can be conducted more easily, as regulatory hurdles are lowered and bureaucratic reporting requirements drastically reduced. Overall, the adjustment allows companies greater flexibility in supply chains, reduces the compulsion to invest in renewable or CO₂-neutral projects, and makes European markets more attractive to fossil energy exporters.

Reality Check

The EU Commission has recently faced mounting pressure from both Washington and the key LNG supplier, Qatar. US Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick had months earlier called on US companies to simply ignore Europe’s ESG framework if it significantly impeded operations—a direct affront to Ursula von der Leyen, who likes to portray herself as the morally superior, untouchable guardian of EU trade.

Together, these forces launched an offensive to bring Brussels’ climate defense to its knees, where cognitive dissonance had taken hold and the undeniable drift of geopolitical power was being ignored.

We have clearly entered the era of resource dominance. Europe imports roughly 60% of its required energy. Its irrational war on baseload energy sources such as nuclear and coal has only deepened dependence.

In Brussels and EU branch capitals, the lesson is now unavoidable: being a resource-poor trading partner in negotiations reveals how Europe’s capital base has been massively weakened by EU policy. Europe has lost its historic dominant position. US President Trump, during negotiations with the EU, merely displayed what behind closed doors was already clear to everyone.

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EU’s Weakened “Chat Control” Bill Still Poses Major Privacy and Surveillance Risks, Academics Warn

On November 19, the European Union stands poised to vote on one of the most consequential surveillance proposals in its digital history.

The legislation, framed as a measure to protect children online, has drawn fierce criticism from a bloc of senior European academics who argue that the proposal, even in its revised form, walks a perilous line. It invites mass surveillance under a veil of voluntarism and does so with little evidence that it will improve safety.

This latest draft of the so-called “Chat Control” law has already been softened from its original form. The Council of the European Union, facing mounting public backlash, stripped out provisions for mandatory on-device scanning of encrypted communications.

But for researchers closely following the legislation, the revised proposal is anything but a retreat.

“The proposal reinstates the option to analyze content beyond images and URLs – including text and video – and to detect newly generated CSAM,” reads the open letter, signed by 18 prominent academics from institutions such as ETH Zurich, KU Leuven, and the Max Planck Institute.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The argument, in essence, is that the Council’s latest version doesn’t eliminate the risk. It only rebrands it.

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RAMPANT CORRUPTION: European Leaders Pressure Zelensky Over Energy Kickback Scandal

People surprised by corruption in Ukraine are like people surprised that Joe Biden was senile – not paying attention.

So bad is the corruption scandal unfolding in Ukraine that Globalist EU leaders find themselves obliged to breach the usual taboo on criticizing Ukraine or Volodymyr Zelensky in public.

Out of the public eye, the Europeans are seeking ‘reassurances’ from Ukraine regarding further financial support to the country.

This comes after the anti-corruption agencies – that Zelensky wanted to dismantle – are unleashing a corruption probe that has revealed a $100 million kickback scheme tied to the critical energy sector.

Several of Zelensky’s close associates are involved in the plot, so the Kiev leader had to issue sanctions against his own business partner and also to dismiss several senior ministers.

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The Disguised Return of The EU’s Private Message Scanning Plot

A major political confrontation over online privacy is approaching as European governments prepare to decide on “Chat Control 2.0,” the European Commission’s revised proposal for monitoring private digital communications.

The plan, which could be endorsed behind closed doors, has drawn urgent warnings from Dr. Patrick Breyer, a jurist and former Member of the European Parliament, who says the draft conceals sweeping new surveillance powers beneath misleading language about “risk mitigation” and “child protection.”

In a release sent to Reclaim The Net, Breyer, long a defender of digital freedom, argues that the Commission has quietly reintroduced compulsory scanning of private messages after it was previously rejected.

He describes the move as a “deceptive sleight of hand,” insisting that it transforms a supposedly voluntary framework into a system that could compel all chat, email, and messaging providers to monitor users.

“This is a political deception of the highest order,” Breyer said.

“Following loud public protests, several member states, including Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Austria, said ‘No’ to indiscriminate Chat Control. Now it’s coming back through the back door disguised, more dangerous, and more comprehensive than ever. The public is being played for fools.”

Under the new text, providers would be obliged to take “all appropriate risk mitigation measures” to prevent abuse on their platforms. While the Commission presents this as a flexible safety requirement, Breyer insists it is a loophole that could justify forcing companies to scan every private message, including those protected by end-to-end encryption.

“The loophole renders the much-praised removal of detection orders worthless and negates their supposed voluntary nature,” he said.

He warns that it could even lead to the introduction of “client-side scanning,” where users’ devices themselves perform surveillance before messages are sent.

Unlike the current temporary exemption known as “Chat Control 1.0,” which allows voluntary scanning of photos and videos, the new draft would open the door to text and metadata analysis. Algorithms and artificial intelligence could be deployed to monitor conversations and flag “suspicious” content.

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Brussels Aims at WhatsApp in the Next Round of Speech Control

Meta’s WhatsApp platform is set to come under tighter European oversight as regulators prepare to bring its “channels” feature under the European Union’s far-reaching censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), the same framework that already pressures Facebook and Instagram.

According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter say the European Commission has informed Meta that WhatsApp’s channels are being prepared for designation as a “Very Large Online Platform.”

That classification carries extensive responsibilities for content censorship. Although no public date has been announced, the Commission’s notice indicates that WhatsApp will soon face some of the most demanding digital rules in the world.

Channels, which allow public updates from news outlets, public figures, and organizations, function more like social media feeds than private chats.

WhatsApp reported earlier this year that these channels reached around 46.8 million users in Europe by late 2024, slightly above the DSA’s 45 million-user threshold for stricter oversight.

Once a service crosses that line, it must perform regular assessments of how illegal or “harmful” content circulates and develop strategies to limit its spread. Platforms are also required to publish user figures twice a year and risk fines of up to 6 percent of global revenue for failing to comply.

The DSA does not apply to private, encrypted communication, so WhatsApp’s core messaging service will remain unaffected.

Still, the EU’s decision to expand its regulatory reach into new areas of online conversation has caused concern that these rules could burden companies and discourage open dialogue in the name of safety.

The European Commission has remained cautious about providing details, saying only that it “cannot confirm the timeline for a potential future designation.”

For Meta, the move adds another chapter to its ongoing disputes with European regulators.

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EU’s “Democracy Shield” Centralizes Control Over Online Speech

European authorities have finally unveiled the “European Democracy Shield,” we’ve been warning about for some time, a major initiative that consolidates and broadens existing programs of the European Commission to monitor and restrict digital information flows.

Though branded as a safeguard against “foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI)” and “disinformation,” the initiative effectively gives EU institutions unprecedented authority over the online public sphere.

At its core, the framework fuses a variety of mechanisms into a single structure, from AI-driven content detection and regulation of social media influencers to a state-endorsed web of “fact-checkers.”

The presentation speaks of defending democracy, yet the design reveals a machinery oriented toward centralized control of speech, identity, and data.

One of the more alarming integrations links the EU’s Digital Identity program with content filtering and labelling systems.

The Commission has announced plans to “explore possible further measures with the Code’s signatories,” including “detection and labelling of AI-generated and manipulated content circulating on social media services” and “voluntary user-verification tools.”

Officials describe the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet as a means for “secure identification and authentication.”

In real terms, tying verified identity to online activity risks normalizing surveillance and making anonymity in expression a thing of the past.

The Democracy Shield also includes the creation of a “European Centre for Democratic Resilience,” led by Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath.

Framed as a voluntary coordination hub, its mission is “building capacities to withstand foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) and disinformation,” involving EU institutions, Member States, and “neighboring countries and like-minded partners.”

The Centre’s “Stakeholder Platform” is to unite “trusted stakeholders such as civil society organisations, researchers and academia, fact-checkers and media providers.”

In practice, this structure ties policymaking, activism, and media oversight into one cooperative network, eroding the boundaries between government power and public discourse.

Financial incentives reinforce the system. A “European Network of Fact-Checkers” will be funded through EU channels, positioned as independent yet operating within the same institutional framework that sets the rules.

The network will coordinate “fact-checking” in every EU language, maintain a central database of verdicts, and introduce “a protection scheme for fact-checkers in the EU against threats and harassment.”

Such an arrangement destroys the line between independent verification and state-aligned narrative enforcement.

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‘Bloody hydra’ of Ukrainian corruption stretches worldwide – Moscow

A “many-headed bloody hydra” is draining Western taxpayers’ money through sprawling corruption schemes in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned, arguing that the latest scandal in Kiev exposes a network far larger than a simple case of graft.

In a social media post on Thursday, she described a global structure “wrapped around the planet,” channeling funds from Western taxpayers to the elites who profit from the conflict.

Her remarks followed the launch of a major probe by Ukraine’s Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) into alleged embezzlement at the state nuclear operator Energoatom.

According to Zakharova, officials in Kiev serve merely as instruments within a broader machinery involving institutions such as the European Commission and NATO, while the real beneficiaries sit in the inner circles of Western liberal democracies.

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Time to Pay Attention: Europe Just Eviscerated Monetary Privacy, and It’s Coming Here Next

By 2027, the European Union will have completed the most invasive overhaul of its financial system in modern history. Under Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, cash transactions above €10,000 will be illegal—no matter if it’s a private sale, a used car, or a family heirloom. 

“Persons trading in goods or providing services may accept or make a payment in cash only up to an amount of EUR 10 000 or the equivalent in national or foreign currency, whether the transaction is carried out in a single operation or in several linked operations which appear to be linked.” — Regulation (EU) 2024/1624, Article 80, paragraph 1

Simultaneously, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) forces all crypto service providers to implement full-blown surveillance via mandatory identity verification and reporting. An anonymous Bitcoin transfer? That window is closing. And rounding out the trifecta is the European Central Bank’s digital euro, which promises privacy—just not too much of it.

This isn’t a proposal. It’s happening. And if you think it’s just about catching criminals, you haven’t been paying attention.

The justification, as always, is safety. European officials cite €700 billion in annual money laundering as the reason for the crackdown, framing the new rules as a bold stand against crime and corruption. But what they’re building isn’t a net—it’s a cage. These laws don’t distinguish between a cartel kingpin and a retiree who prefers cash. They treat every transaction like a threat, every citizen like a suspect, and every private interaction as a problem to be solved by surveillance.

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European Commission weighs creation of intelligence arm amid global tensions

The European Commission is considering setting up a dedicated intelligence cell to strengthen security amid geopolitical difficulties, an EU spokesperson said on Tuesday, adding that the initiative is still at an early stage.

“We are in a challenging geopolitical and geoeconomic environment, and the Commission, because of this, is examining how to strengthen its security and intelligence capabilities,” the spokesperson said.

The Financial Times earlier reported that the Commission has begun setting up a new intelligence body under President Ursula von der Leyen, in an attempt to improve the use of information gathered by national spy agencies.

The unit, to be formed inside the commission’s secretariat-general, plans to hire officials from across the EU’s intelligence community and collate intelligence for joint purposes, the newspaper reported, citing four people briefed on the plans.

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Europe’s AI Surveillance Race Against the Rules That Protect Privacy

Europol’s deputy executive director, Jürgen Ebner, is urging the European Union to relax its own legal restraints on artificial intelligence, arguing that the rules designed to protect citizens are slowing down police innovation.

He wants a system that allows the agency to skip lengthy rights checks in “emergency” situations and move ahead with new AI tools before the usual data protection reviews are complete.

Ebner told POLITICO that criminals are having “the time of their life” with “their malicious deployment of AI,” while Europol faces months of delay because of required legal assessments.

Those safeguards, which include evaluations under the GDPR and the EU’s AI Act, exist to stop unaccountable automation from taking hold in law enforcement.

Yet Ebner’s comments reveal a growing tendency inside the agency to treat those same checks as obstacles rather than vital protections.

He said the current process can take up to eight months and claimed that speeding it up could save lives.

But an “emergency” fast track for AI surveillance carries an obvious danger. Once such shortcuts are created, the idea of what qualifies as an emergency can expand quickly.

Technologies that monitor, predict, or profile people can then slip beyond their intended use, leaving citizens exposed to automated systems that make judgments about them without transparency or recourse.

Over the past decade, Europol has steadily increased its technical capabilities, investing heavily in large-scale data analysis and decryption tools.

These systems are presented as essential for fighting cross-border crime, yet they also consolidate immense quantities of personal data under centralized control.

Without strong oversight, such tools can move from focused investigation toward widespread data collection and surveillance.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already promised to double Europol’s workforce and turn it into a central hub for combating organized crime, “navigating constantly between the physical and digital worlds.”

A legislative proposal to strengthen the agency’s powers is planned for 2026, raising questions about how much authority and access to data Europol will ultimately gain.

Ebner, who oversees governance at Europol, said that “almost all investigations” now involve the internet and added that the cost of technology has become a “massive burden on law enforcement agencies.”

He urged stronger collaboration with private technology firms, stating that “artificial intelligence is extremely costly. Legal decryption platforms are costly. The same is to be foreseen already for quantum computing.”

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