AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN DEPUTIES RAPPORTEURS OF THE REGULATION ON THE FIGHT AGAINST CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

This week, after months of intense negotiations, a broad agreement was reached among MEPs in charge of negotiating the European Parliament’s position on the legislative proposal presented by the European Commission establishing rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse.

The main objective of this regulation is to establish uniform rules for online service providers to prevent and address the misuse of their services for the distribution of child sexual abuse material and grooming of children.

At a joint press conference accompanied by the shadow rapporteurs (Tang, from the Group of European Social Democrats, Vautmans, from the Renew Group, Breyer, from the Greens, and Ernst, from The Left), the main rapporteur, Zarzalejos, explained the general lines of the agreement, which also has the support of the European Conservatives, Sofo, and the Identity and Democracy Group, Tardino.

The popular MEP stressed in his appearance before the media that “this result has been possible thanks to the commitment and work done by all the political groups in the Parliament. The spirit of compromise has prevailed. We started from different positions and we have been working on this dossier in an extremely controversial environment”.

In Zarzalejos’ opinion, a positive balance has been struck between the protection of children in the digital world and respect for fundamental rights, especially the privacy of Internet users.

In this sense, the MEP assured that “there is no mass scanning of private communications or backdoors to weaken encryption. There are no legal or technical shortcuts. But there is a positive and pressing duty to implement legal tools to prevent and combat this heinous crime that is reflected on the Internet in the form of child sexual abuse material.”

The Parliament’s report will be put to a vote in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on November 14. Following the announcement of the outcome of this vote during the November plenary session in Strasbourg, Parliament will be given the green light to begin inter-institutional negotiations, to be led by Zarzalejos, with the Council of the European Union.

The Council, whose rotating presidency is currently held by the Kingdom of Spain, has not yet reached a common position on this legislative proposal.