I'm really surprised at the hurry. The EU, and many EU governments, have been ramming through deeply unpopular legislation at a breakneck pace for no apparent reason, lately.

It feels like the last turn in a board game where everyone is busy taking points with no regard for the impact of the decisions on the theoretical next turn - because there is no next turn. Its really weird.

> blame-laundering mechanism

Also, I'm stealing this.

> it might awaken people that might've overlooked the structural failures of the EU and finally radicalise them

Haha, no. As long as there is bread and circus, nothing wil happen.

To understand whether/to what extent this is brazen, I'd be interested to learn the reasoning why urgency procedures are possible, and in particular, why the apparent majority against shouldn't have been enough, and what is needed to classify something as urgent.

I think I'm one of those to whom you refer (except that I'm already "awake", or at least I like to think so). I'm normally pro-EU but this chat control is anathema to me. I'll be voting anti-EU in future I think.

The urgency procedure has nothing to do with the absolute majority requirement. It's necessary because, in the second reading, the Parliament should have an absolute majority to reject or amend the Council (i.e. the governments of the member states) position but only a simple majority to approve it

They've been doing this with unpopular votes since the inception of the EU, nothing new and people definitely haven't woken up, unfortunately.

Yes, this basically means the EU pushed a new censorship regulation using lawfare tricks without ever having a majority vote for the proposal.

If it's not a dictatorship, a regime, a shithole, a kleptocracy, or whatever name they use for a government they don't like, I don't know what it is.

What should worry everybody is the big picture (trying to abstract from politics, ideologies and specific situation). In recent years we had:

- Europe is now at war with Russia (neighbor)

- Its relationship with the US is rapidly deteriorating (main partner, de facto protector)

- Its relationship with China is also rapidly deteriorating

- It is getting very antagonistic with it own citizen and some individual member countries (such as Hungaria or Romania recently)

So there are a lot of justifications in each case but the overall picture is worrisome. You can't be antagonistic with everyone.

There is a reason why the North Korean regime is still around, they never forgot they need to keep a good relationship with at least one powerful ally.

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