Tag: eu

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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EU to establish ‘Ministry of Truth’ – Guardian

The European Union is planning to launch a centralized hub for monitoring and countering what it calls foreign “disinformation,” according to a leaked document seen by the Guardian. Critics have long warned that Brussels’ initiatives amount to the institutionalization of a censorship regime.

According to the European Commission proposal, set to be published on November 12, the so-called Centre for Democratic Resilience will function as part of a broader “democracy shield” strategy, pitched by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ahead of the 2024 European elections.

Participation in the center will be voluntary, and the Commission has welcomed “like-minded partners” outside the bloc, including the UK and countries seeking accession.

The draft accuses Russia of escalating “hybrid attacks” by disseminating false narratives, while also pointing to China as another threat – alleging that Beijing uses PR firms and social media influencers to advance its interests across Europe.

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The Climate Cult Fails Europe

The roadmap is already set: in the coming years, the EU and its member states will make both businesses and consumers pay even more for CO2 emissions. BASF CEO Markus Kamieth warns of the enormous destructive potential of this policy.

Truth comes on pigeon feet — Friedrich Nietzsche already knew that. And apparently, the same applies to European climate policy: slowly, but inevitably, the reality of the true costs of the green transformation and its impact on Germany’s industrial foundation is emerging.

On October 29, BASF’s CEO Markus Kamieth faced the press during the quarterly results presentation. What he announced was another cold shower for anyone still hoping for a new economic miracle.

Weak Results in a Stable Environment

The world’s largest chemical company reported a 3% decline in revenue in Q3 2025 compared to last year, while EBITDA fell by 5%. BASF is under massive pressure and has already cut 1,400 jobs to meet growing cost pressures.

BASF’s numbers have to be seen against the backdrop of a slowly recovering global economic cycle. The U.S. economy, growing nearly 4%, is driving strong demand. Economies in China and India continue to expand dynamically, particularly in sectors critical to the chemical industry.

While the global economy gains momentum, BASF — like much of Germany’s chemical sector and the broader industry — continues to lose ground.

The company’s main site in Ludwigshafen is hit hardest, leaving its 33,000 employees facing an uncertain future.

Criticism of the Climate Course

Kamieth was unexpectedly outspoken during the presentation. In addition to criticizing EU trade policy and rising energy costs in Germany, he struck at a rarely openly discussed wound: the EU’s climate policy.

Kamieth didn’t mince words, calling the European CO2 emissions trading system (EU ETS 2) what it is: an attack on Europe’s industrial foundation.

For BASF alone, if the current climate course within CO2 trading remains unchanged, annual additional costs of around €1 billion will arise from 2027 onward, when exemptions are removed — costs borne exclusively by European industry, while the rest of the world simply does not participate.

Kamieth hit a sore spot. EU industry is being financially squeezed by an ideologized CO2 policy. Deindustrialization is — whether unspoken or suppressed — the result of Brussels’ policies and their national enforcers, whose only response to their self-inflicted disaster is ever-new subsidies.

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The EU’s Green Ideology Is Crashing Europe’s Car Industry

The European Green Deal, launched in 2019, is an ecological pact that has been, unequivocally, an enemy of European taxpayers and innovation. Its declared goal is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 through a dense web of regulations that reach deep into every sector of the European economy. More than any other sector, the automotive industry is being put at risk of an irreversible crash.

Pressuring companies and citizens alike, the pact promotes the renunciation of capitalism, an inevitable sacrifice in the name of green policies. Such binding commitments will have severe economic consequences for a European Union increasingly weakened by its own laws and regulations.

At the heart of the Deal, by 2035, all new cars sold within the European Union are expected to be electric, imposing a total ban on combustion and engine vehicles. The problem is that this goal, far from being an environmental triumph, represents a deeply ideological political intrusion, an act of social engineering with an anti-capitalist character, disguised as green progress but detached from economic reality. The consequences are serious for the European automotive sector.

It is important to recall that this industry is one of the pillars of the European economy, representing over 7% of the EU’s GDP and around 13.8 million direct and indirect jobs.

Yet the sector now faces the prospect of mass layoffs, relocation of production, and a loss of global influence as a direct consequence of this heavy-handed Deal. Core EU countries such as Germany and Italy have already voiced resistance, warning of the economic and social consequences of a forced transition that ignores the continent’s technological and energy realities.

CEO of Mercedes-Benz, Ola Källenius, stated that the EU’s plan to eliminate combustion engines by 2035 would drive the sector “full speed into a wall.” His words, though strong, capture the growing sense of unease among Europe’s leading manufacturers.

The pressure is twofold. Internally, profit margins are shrinking as companies divert billions into forced electrification. Externally, they face fierce competition from China, with brands such as BYD and NIO, backed by an aggressive industrial policy, consolidated supply chains, and technological dominance in batteries. This combination allows Chinese manufacturers to produce at lower costs and scale faster.

Meanwhile, European brands struggle to survive between the high costs of transition and Asian price dumping, which has already led Brussels to impose additional tariffs of 30–40% on Chinese electric vehicles. 

The interventionist posture of Brussels remains unchanged, failing to understand that regulation only breeds more regulation, and inevitably creates market distortions that harm both businesses and consumers.

Europe is imposing a single path on manufacturers—electric cars—while the automotive sector itself argues that it is possible to meet environmental goals through multiple technological solutions. Brands such as Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari, and Stellantis maintain that the transition can and should be technologically neutral, allowing electric, hybrid, e-fuel, and hydrogen vehicles to compete on equal terms. The goal, they say, must be to reduce emissions, not to eliminate technologies for ideological reasons. Instead of encouraging innovation, Brussels dictates by decree what may exist and what must disappear, ignoring the knowledge and experience of those who actually build the industry.

Synthetic fuels, produced from green hydrogen and captured CO₂, are the clearest example of a more appealing alternative: they drastically reduce emissions without leading to the destruction of engines, factories, and jobs, demonstrating that true innovation arises from freedom of choice, not political imposition.

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