[moffkalast]

We've been mostly deplatformed for any kind of organized action against it, there's just writing an email to your MEP or... a change.org petition. Yes really. Nothing official one could sign their name under.

But even so, the commission does whatever it wants anyway, they are complete autocrats when it comes to law proposal, it's up to the parliament and the courts to something about it afterwards. And they should given that it's unconstitutional in many EU countries and incompatible with GDPR as it currently exists.

[gmueckl]

Any EU citizen also has the right to petition the EU parliament directly.

[Saline9515]

Which is totally useless. Various lobbies have infinite money and time, unlike citizens.

[api]

Would it be correct to compare the EU's autocratic pronouncements to Presidential executive orders in the US? In the sense that they can pass whatever they want with little feedback but then the courts can tear them apart?

[pas]

It's ridiculously different, there's no single person or country that can do anything like that

there are multiple ways to make EU law, there are regulations (that apply directly) and directives that member states need to implement (basically ratify)

the Commission proposed something and then the Council votes on it and then there's the EP which votes on it

this one is a regulation proposal

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_to_Prevent_and_Co...

the treaties have some areas that are under "Special legislative procedures" where the EP cannot propose amendments, but still has consent power, but in some cases like internal market exemptions and competition law only consultation right

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/decision-makin...

[varispeed]

Why this even got to a stage of being official?

It's something a Nazi regime would implement today had it existed.

There is no one in the EU that would tell those people are you fkin insane and give them a sack?

[supermatt]

I assume from your comment history you are from the USA.

It’s surprising how quickly you have forgotten CISPA, EARN IT, etc - which were much more invasive proposals than chat control (slurping of all data of everyone, not just client side scanning for csam).

Of course, now you just cram unrelated shit into “big beautiful bills”, speed it through with minimal oversight using loopholes, and hope no one will notice. Has no one told you how fkin insane that is?

[pas]

because we still live in the shadows of those times, unfortunately.

there is at least one very bad quasi-dictatorship in the EU, Hungary, where "protecting the children" is used as the perfect propaganda slogen, but when it comes to holding abusers accountable, things are 240% farcical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katalin_Nov%C3%A1k_presidentia...

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=G%C3%A1bor_Kaleta...

and of course Hungary supports this. who would have thought.

[tpm]

Not at all, the Commission and the Council together can do a lot but it's important to understand both are collective bodies formed by governments of member states and can only act in some limited areas (defined very exactly by the various treaties). But then most of the important decisions have to be approved either by the directly elected Parliament or by all national parliaments (like some international agreements). And that's for legislation that doesn't have to be transposed into national law (can be applied directly), but most of the legislation has to be transposed and the member states have some leeway there.

[kypro]

Not really.

Unlike the president the EU commission are unelected and the commission is the only branch of government which can propose laws, however they can't force anything through in the same way the US president can with an executive order (it must go through parliament).

I guess it's good/bad, but in different ways to the US. It's bad in the sense EU citizens can't elect the people proposing their laws, but it's good in the sense that the commission can't just force things through without approval from the parliament which consists of MEPs which europeans elect.

As far as I'm aware the courts function in more or less the same way. Here in the UK parliament is sovereign and therefore can overrule any court decision with new law. This isn't true for the EU and I believe it also isn't true in the US.

[somewhereoutth]

The EU Council is the highest body in the EU (not the Parliament, especially not the Commission - who are basically the civil service or secretariat for the EU).

The EU is founded on the pooled sovereignty of the member states (unlike in the US, where the reverse is the case). The Council represents those member states (each has a seat), and so holds this pooled sovereignty.

[supermatt]

> they can pass whatever they want

The EC can’t pass anything.

[munksbeer]

> But even so, the commission does whatever it wants anyway, they are complete autocrats when it comes to law proposal

For anyone reading this drivel, this is a complete misrepresentation of how the EU works. The commission changes and is appointed by the elected heads of the member nations to do their bidding. The push for chat control is coming from the member nations, not some "evil mysterious third party" that appeared out of nowhere to control us all.

People who don't understand the EU and resort to blaming it for these sort of problems are actually causing more harm, because they're directing people's anger at the wrong targets. Target your own elected officials, because they are the ones pushing for this and the ones who steer the commission.