[spikels]

Not only was Chat Control 1.0 already rejected twice by the European Parliament but:

- This vote took place on last day of the session when many MEPs had already left for Summer vacation - 112 MEPs of 719 didn't vote.

- The vote was called only two days before as an "Rule 170 - Urgent procedure" - 73 MEPs missed the vote making it "urgent". Normally it takes months of procedure to come up for a final vote.

[maxloh]

I think that means those MEPs are not doing their jobs. They are the representatives of their people, but somehow they left for vacation before the last day of the session. They failed in the most important part of their duty.

[Obscurity4340]

Its beyond political malpractice

[mike_hearn]

Around ten years ago I watched some MEPs on YouTube talk about their jobs. A lot of them were scathing. The EP isn't a real parliament and the people in it don't have any real power, so it fills up with cheerleaders and hecklers.

Attendance isn't just low before the summer break, it's low all the time. MEPs miss votes for reasons as trivial as there being a football game on, because why not? It's not like their votes matter much anyway. Everything important is decided upon long before they get involved, they aren't allowed to actually write laws or pass them or repeal them, and so nobody with any political ambition goes there unless they're using it as a springboard to national politics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=166SAhPB5-Q

> "Mr President, our parliament in the United Kingdom sat for 142 days last year and it was criticized widely for only sitting for that amount of time yet we in Brussels and Strasburg in the plenary and mini plenary, we sit for just five days a month and on three of those days it's only part of a day that we actually sit for. So we end up with debate in this chamber where microphones of speakers are cut off after 60 seconds, 90 seconds or 2 minutes, and we have no way of expanding on a point, we have no way of properly challenging a speaker, we have no means of proper scrutiny of proposed legislation that comes through. Surely it would make more sense to have sufficient time allocated to proper debate to reason debate and those who actually believe in the structures and institutions of this place should surely welcome that. I think my 60 seconds is up."

You can tell it's a joke institution because they regularly penalize MEPs for the content of their two minute speeches. Britain has the concept of parliamentary immunity but the EU does not, so you get "politicians" who are told what they can and cannot say by the leaders of other parties.

[Nursie]

As much as Brexit was a footgun, this has always seemed to me a very valid criticism of the EU that the remain side of that debate never really tackled. There is a huge democratic deficit in the organisation.

The Council, made up of heads of state, set the direction.

The Commission, made up of whoever is nominated by those heads of state, usually some mate of theirs with no democratic accountability or mandate of their own (see: Peter Mandelson), is the body that decides on and creates legislation.

The Parliament, made up of the actually elected members, seems to exist just to rubber-stamp the output of the other bodies. Or occasionally not, but look what happened here, they were asked again until they did * .

Don't get me wrong, I think there's a lot that's good about the EU too, but it's in need of serious reform before it can claim to be a truly democratic set of bodies.

(* Which is incidentally another criticism of the EU, mostly centred around the time of the Lisbon treaty, which was first put forward as the new EU constitution but, after rejection in some popular referenda in some countries, was renamed the Lisbon Treaty and pushed through again. In the UK this caused waves because the populace was not asked at all about the treaty and Gordon Brown was reported to have snuck-off and signed it into law on the quiet)

[DrBazza]

> because the populace was not asked at all about the treaty

Well, the UK has only been asked about Europe twice - once to join and once to leave. Unlike many other European countries that frequently ask their populace as a way of standard governance.

The only other UK referendum in my lifetime was the 'alternative vote'

The UK government (no matter the party) just doesn't seem to like asking the public's opinion, on things. And after 2016, I'd be very surprised to see another referendum on anything, any time soon as the outcome of that was opposite to what the 'establishment' wanted (cue the last decade of squabbling). They will instead use the excuse: 'you gave us the mandate choosing us at the General Election'.

[mike_hearn]

Both EU referendums were about whether to leave. Labour took Britain in without a referendum and only held one on reversing it due to the outrage that caused.

[bialamusic]

It is a global push to kill technology

[naruhodo]

It's a push by oligarchs to establish total surveillance and control of the masses to protect themselves from the coming environmental (climate change) and economic (mass unemployment) collapses.

In a functioning democracy, the masses would demand higher taxes on the wealthy to fund social support. The oligarchy has already bought out democracy in the US and other places to ensure that doesn't happen. So to keep the masses in line, a system of totalitarian oppression is required.

[omicronxt]

It's amazing more people don't recognize this and judging from some posts in this thread as a solution they will support oligarch backed alt-right like that will fix the problem.

[bko]

That's why you have a constitution with rights that are not up for vote.

Even relying on people to vote no is not enough.

[logicchains]

Some European countries like Germany do, but the EU somehow can override those national constitutions.

[LtWorf]

It cannot. EU laws are completely useless and must be implemented by every government as a local law, which won't be more powerful than the constitution.

The problem is that constitutional courts should then say the law was against the constitution and cancel it, but will that happen?

[DiogenesKynikos]

In theory, it can't. But in reality, it does in important cases.

Germany has implemented EU sanctions against a German journalist, which deprive him and his family of the ability to conduct basically any economic activity in Germany or even to leave the country. He is not allowed to work. No one is allowed to pay him money. He has to petition the government every time he wants to access even a small amount of the money in his own bank account. The same restrictions apply to his close family members, because they are suspected of helping him survive financially. He is barred from crossing any border in Europe, including to leave.

He has not been accused or convicted of anything in court. The only procedure that was required to hand down an economic death sentence was for the EU Commission to put his name on a list.

The German government claims this is all okay, because the journalist can proactively challenge his sanction listing in Brussels. It's a years-long process that will require paying lawyers - using money he is not allowed to access.

Needless to say, this is all highly unconstitutional. But the German government simply doesn't care. They just say they're implementing EU sanctions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCseyin_Do%C4%9Fru

[patates]

Very weird case. I don't think anyone can survive here in Germany on a 503€ allowance he gets, and let alone having some probable but unproven ties to a state considered an enemy since only recently, I would find crippling someone to that degree harsh even for a convicted war criminal. He's apparently not even allowed to pay rent!

[mike_hearn]

It's not that weird. There are other cases like it. Jacques Baud is a Swiss guy and was sanctioned by the EU Commission for "spreading Russian propaganda". At the time he was living in Brussels and the EU became a prison that he's not allowed to leave.

https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2025/article/ancien-espion-su...

The sanctions imposed on December 15 by the European Union against Jacques Baud and eleven other people include the freezing of their assets, a ban on doing business and bans on entering the EU.

“I don’t have the right to return to Switzerland, or even to travel within the EU. I’m essentially being held against my will,” says Jacques Baud.

[msdz]

Genuinely thank you for linking to him and his case.

I live in Germany and am -principally- a massive advocate for and proponent of the free (or liberal) democratic basic order ("FDGO" [0]) we have had here for the last decades, and apart from Chat Control, I’m usually very highly pro-EU, too.

But reading this has genuinely left me in a bit of a shock now, and created some (for lack of a better word) FUD I haven’t felt before with regard to these two, eh, institutions governing us.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democratic_basic_order

[LtWorf]

That's what I'm saying. It's completely illegal but nobody cares.

[petesergeant]

> EU laws are completely useless and must be implemented by every government as a local law

This isn’t true. Regulations are directly applicable and don’t require national legislation; directives generally do. Individuals affected by a failure to implement a directive can complain to the European Commission, which can bring infringement proceedings against the member state and potentially seek financial penalties.

EU law also has primacy over conflicting national law, and the CJEU’s position is that this includes constitutional provisions. Courts in Germany and Poland have challenged that position, but refusing to comply can put the countries in breach of their EU treaty obligations and lead to infringement proceedings and penalties.

[wojciii]

The Danish government is pro spying on its people.

Currently we have numberplate recognition everywhere and logging of SMS and position info of phones.

So this is just another step into the direction where we will be watched everywhere by our government in case we step out of line.

[petesergeant]

> The Danish government is pro spying on its people.

It would be more surprising if the organisation ultimately responsible for security did not want to.

[LtWorf]

UK is full of cameras… is it any safer?

[rowyourboat]

No, it can't. It's going to be an interesting legal challenge.

Also, the European Court of Justice has, to the best of my knowledge, not ruled on this yet, either. The fact fight isn't over.

[LtWorf]

We already have a constitution like that in Italy, not that anyone cares to enforce it though…

[XorNot]

The sheer optimism of posting this as an American right now...

[oofdere]

our rights have largely held up even in the absurd world we live in, and the constitution continues to be a thorn on the side of those trying to abridge them. what we are seeing now is the conclusion of decades of eroding our rights and the tower still refuses to topple. though of course we're going to have a lot of work to do fixing it up after all is said and done.

[MaxwellJensen]

Have you heard of the Patriot Act?

[ToValueFunfetti]

Have you heard of ACLU v. Clapper, HLP v. DoJ, Doe v. Ashcroft, or US v. Moalin? Parent acknowledges decades of degradation and points to thorns like these.

[int_19h]

Have you seen Wickard v. Filburn?

[solidsnack9000]

I'm not sure any country actually has a Constitution with rights that are not up for a vote. There is generally a separate, harder procedure for changing the "basic law" or Constitution of a country -- for example, 2/3 of delegates or a 2/3 of states or something of that nature -- but I'd be surprised if there's a country where they have literally no way to change it at all.

[kevin_thibedeau]

The US constitution doesn't grant rights. It's sort of the whole deal which the rest of the western world doesn't really understand, much less Americans themselves.

[solidsnack9000]

Everything in the US Constitution is amendable, though -- in other words, the whole Constitution can be changed with a vote.

The US is founded on certain ideas about natural rights -- hence not granted, per se -- but that's somewhat orthogonal to this whole issue. Even if there were an unwritten constitution, a country could base its institutions, philosophy of lawmaking, jurisprudence, &c, on natural rights doctrine (and for a time, the British did exactly that).

The earlier post mentions "That's why you have a constitution with rights that are not up for vote." but if what they mean is natural rights, that goes well beyond any procedural issue around the basic law.

[WatchDog]

The US constitution is one of the few constitutions that _does_ grant rights[0].

[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights

[ToValueFunfetti]

That page specifically says the constitution grants rights to the government and reserves the rights of the people. There is a lot in there about the case against the bill of rights, a big part of which is that itemizing the rights implies that they are limited to the list.

Editing to clarify that this isn't just semantics: under the 'grant rights to the people' model, a government that grants one set of rights is just as legitimate as one that grants another. It was the position of the founders that governments which deny certain rights are infringing on the pre-existing rights of the people. This is the basis for their position on revolution.

[Jensson]

So that means there it offers zero protection against private corporations? It seems like that is a bad idea, isn't it better to say people have rights that nobody is allowed to violate instead? Like freedom of speech doesn't matter much if private corporations are allowed to silence you.

[kevin_thibedeau]

That is a list of restrictions on government power, not a grant.

[thaumasiotes]

Those are the same thing, with no difference existing between them in any context. You're complaining about the difference between a document that describes party A buying something from party B versus another one that describes party B selling the thing to party A.

Think about what it might mean for

(a) the government to give me the right to live in your house; or

(b) the government to restrict you from expelling me from your house.

[nine_k]

Mr Madison, and a bunch of other Founding Fathers, might disagree a bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights

[nine_k]

Amending the US Constitution takes a lot of voting, with very large majorities in Congress / Senate and state legislatures. This has been achieved a number of times, and some of these decisions were rather unwise, like the Prohibition (18th amendment).

[solidsnack9000]

Yes, there is a separate, harder procedure for changing the Constitution of the United States -- but that procedure is also a vote.

[int_19h]

Germany is one prominent example for obvious historical reasons.

But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause are not all that uncommon in general.

[solidsnack9000]

The page you link contains many interesting examples; but many of them are simply cases of making the vote harder -- requiring unanimous consent to change English-French bilingualism in Canada, for example -- rather than cases where the law simply can not ever be changed by a vote.

With regards to Germany, the page says:

...if a constitution provides for a mechanism of its own abolition or replacement, like the German Basic Law does in Article 146, this by necessity provides a "back door" for getting rid of the "eternity clause", too.

It's really hard to have a legal system that literally can not be changed by any legitimate vote -- only by revolution -- because what sits at the bottom of most of them (all of them?) is that the consent of some body politic is necessary and sufficient to legitimate a law.

[int_19h]

Ultimately it doesn't matter what the constitution says if a large enough supermajority is unhappy about it. Constitutions by themselves are pieces of paper, they only work when society as a whole chooses to treat them as more than that.

[solidsnack9000]

That is true; but that is also something fundamentally different.

[maxweylandt]

The bill of rights section of the Namibian constitution may not be amended

[SV_BubbleTime]

> This vote took place on last day of the session when many MEPs had already left for Summer vacation

Surely this was not by someone’s design. Maybe though… you don’t leave a day early for your vacation?

[trinsic2]

Sounds like an unlawful law to me, but hey. Im an American, what do I know.

[stingraycharles]

And then people wonder why there’s so little faith in the EU and why there is a perception of them being disconnected from the real interests of the people.

[LtWorf]

Oh but they keep reposting how phones will have replaceable batteries now, so it's all fine, they are good guys!

I've seen several posts with the photo of Ursula (one of the most hated politicians of all times) associated with the batteries thing.

[GiorgioG]

So 112 MEPs didn't do their job...got it.

[rowanG077]

Politicians can take vacations. Many things went wrong here but this ain't it.

[alberto467]

Exactly. The issue is them being automatically in favor, that’s a really extreme measure I as an eu citizen did not know about, even though I’d say I’m probably more informed then the average and was made to study eu history, structure and laws in school. That kind of stuff is really weird, even weirder is that such an emergency measure can be activated without countries being in active war or the like.

[blackqueeriroh]

Nobody is automatically in favor. What are you talking about, that’s not how it worked at all.

[andrepd]

Make a "reverse vote" to reject passing a law = abstentions mean you don't reject passing the law = abstentions mean you support passing the law

[bergfest]

This has got to be rejected by any court that has not been completely corrupted.

[jongjong]

This is beyond retarded. It's not a loophole, it's too f stupid to count as a loophole. This interpretation is a violation of the law. They should jail every EU parliamentarian who claims that this is a valid interpretation.

Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.

It completely perverts the entire system. With this approach, any law can be passed by a minority; just phrase as a negative.

I propose a new law: "The EU is hereby not not not abolished" ohh look, it failed to gain majority vote! EU is over! Everyone go home! Look at how clever I am finding loopholes!

[joe_mamba]

>That kind of stuff is really weird, even weirder is that such an emergency measure can be activated without countries being in active war or the like.

What's also just as weird is how the EU can just straight up sanction, debank and make European citizens virtually homeless overnight, without even a trial day in court. Absolutely insane.

This is some NAZI/USSR shit, except you don't get executed, you just get deranked and made homeless and maybe die from that on the whims of some bureaucrat in another country.

We gave the EU superpowers to "protect us" but never asked ourselves what happens when they use those powers against us when people vocally don't agree with their agenda.

[mflaherty22]

Very reductionist comment- if you're an elected representative and you leave early to take a vacation knowing you'll be missing votes, you're not doing your job..

[JumpCrisscross]

> knowing you'll be missing votes, you're not doing your job

If you knowingly miss a vote, that’s part of the job. If your OOO gets played, that’s fucking up.

[rowanG077]

They did not know this, this was an emergency vote literally injected two days ago.

[tedggh]

Perhaps there should not be a vote while so many representatives are absent, unless it’s about a truly critical issue, like war.

[joe_mamba]

This. When I need to take my summer vacation, I need to request it to my manager in due time so the team can plan customer deliveries accordingly, and in my last day before leaving I need to do a handover of my open tasks to whoever will do the work in my absence. I can't just spontaneously decide one day that tomorrow I'm leaving for 2-4 weeks on vacation with no notice and no handover to my team.

What's stopping MEPs from having to do that? Do they have literally zero responsibilities and accountabilities? Because their job is pretty critical for our society an security, even if a trained monkey could do it in theory.

[quantum_magpie]

Oh, so it's also your fault when you plan, and get approved a vacation, and then in the middle of it (lets's say on week 2 out of 4) you're notified that in two days you must be in the office, or, according to you, you should get canned?

[hunter-gatherer]

I don't know... I'm not European so I don't really care, but I feel like there are some jobs that have an existing overlap of _duty_. I was in the military, and PTO was viewed as a privilege, and sometimes leave was cancelled, but that makes sense because of the position. Other civilian jobs, like firefighters, police, maybe some medical practitioners, might have this same thing. Politicians I would say is definitely one of those positions, where you should actually be in "public service". Officials in a democracy are supposed to be elected not because we need people to fill vacant jobs, but because we need people to be on duty to make the hard decisions.

Basically, I don't think politicians should be held to the same standard as some SWE making note-taking apps.

[NikolaNovak]

It is my limited understanding this is other way around - you plan your vacation, you get it approved, then on your vacation an emergency vote to reduce your salary is called and you automatically voted yes.

[win311fwg]

> I can't just spontaneously decide one day [...]

Sure you can. What unstoppable force is going to prevent you?

You might find out there are undesirable consequences if you make that choice, but that is only if the employer decides to bring undesirable consequences. MEP employers in particular are generally apathetic about having an employee on staff. Extremely so — to the point that they won't even take a minute out of multiple years to say "hi" to the person they hired, never mind give any direction to the employee.

It doesn't have to be that way, but when the employer doesn't care, that is the way it will be.

[mvdtnz]

Ever worked with Europeans? This is how they treat work. In their culture taking vacation and actually switching off is part of the job. I'm not making a value judgement but their approach to work is very different to what some of us are used to.

[mikestorrent]

So they should prorogue the entire Parliament and they all take a month off together. Why the fuck should some particular province or riding or whatever miss out on representation on an important issue just because their rep is out for a week on an island somewhere? Could they not have a proxy / surrogate??

[throw_await]

They are already doing that. There is an official summer break until September 02.

[znort_]

taking vacation and switching off is actually the sane thing for a person to do. the problem is that there is no provision for your post being covered while on vacation, and it's a problem in the enterprise/organization.

imo that a representative of the people misses a vote should just not be acceptable under any circumstances.

that's of course if we had to take "democracy" as an actually meaningful representation of the people. this was a cheap political maneuver to get a bill passed. happens everywhere. they would have gotten the bill through by any other means anyway.

that would be in an ideal democracy, though, in reality european parlamentarians don't even draft laws, they are only able to sign off on laws drafted by shady appointees of an equally shady and largely unelected (by the people) comission, take it or leave it. that, photo ops and declarations is their whole job, it shouldn't be too complicated to have a fucking substitute when on vacation.

[andsoitis]

I don’t consider these politicians typical employees.

Do you think CEOs take vacation where they cannot be reached? If it does happen, it is a very rare exception.

[Towaway69]

The idea behind _representative_ democracy is that _we_ take holidays and our representatives do the work of upholding _our_ democratic values. These MEPs took their holidays before the parliamentary session was complete.

If we're talking about _direct_ democracy then we have to do the work ourselves but because we don't want to do that (because we want to go on holydays), we give up our rights to those who _want_ to represent us.

That, of course, falls apart once those representing us start to only represent themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle)#Book_III

[rendaw]

This is an absurdly bad take.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/9/plenary-session...

> Plenary sessions of Parliament take place 12 times per year in Strasbourg and last four days

There are 48 days in sessions over a year. You're saying that it's too much to ask MEPs not to take holidays during those 48 days? Am I missing something here?

[rowanG077]

Do you those 48 days are the total number of working hours these MEPs have? Of course not. Something always needs to give when going on vacation. And usually missing a a plenary session is not weird or the end of the world. The problem here is that in this case the rules were abused.

[gmueckl]

Most of the work of an MP is not sitting in plenary sessions looking bored. The normally important bits are in-between - committee and office work. This specific event here is an example of a plenary session suddenly being made extremely important by a procedural trick.

[xienze]

But it _was_ a plenary session, was it not? One of only 48? That someone could easily avoid scheduling a vacation during?

[paulddraper]

What is the out of session time for?

[gmueckl]

For doing actual work? Getting in touch with constituents, listening to them, faction internal coordination, working on committee specific stuff, understanding proposals and motions of others, maybe filing their own... when taken seriously, this can be an intense job.

[paulddraper]

Most of that list is done in session.

This was just everyone leaving on a Friday, sort of a work day, sort of not.

[bdelmas]

Or exactly as planned.