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Waiting for updates on what happened in room EB S5 where COREPER II is in session since 10:00 CET today and #Chatcontrol is on the agenda. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/mpo/2024/12/coreper-2-permanent-representatives-committee-(344148)/
Coreper II couldn't agree on a common position today. So it didn't become an A-item on the agenda of next weeks Justice and Home Affairs meeting. (A-item means no discussion, just a vote that is predetermined to go through). It didn't even make a safe spot on the agenda, it's only listed as optional item (the (poss.) means possible agenda item). So #Chatcontrol most likely will stay zombie and moved to the next (polish) presidency.
https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/CM-5228-2024-INIT/en/pdf
When a position/proposal becomes an A-item on the agenda, it means that a common position has been reached in the council and no discussion is needed. It's really a teaching moment to see what happens with A-items in a council meeting. It's part of the public deliberation, so you can all watch it live. It goes like this (and I am not kidding): The meeting president says "And now the A-items." short pause "Thank you, all A-items have been decided and will be entered into the record." That's it.
The only thing that can stop a vote on an A-item is when a member state requests a removal from the list *before* the meeting starts. This happens. Not very often, but it happens. In the Software Patent "war" back in 2002-2005 we managed to get such removals a few times :)
@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.netFor next weeks meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs configuration of the EU council, the current provisional list of A-items is at https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/CM-5264-2024-INIT/en/pdf Go have a look. All of these votes will be bundled and decided in a few seconds :) You might notice that some entries look weird and don't seem to belong in that specific configuration. That is also quite normal. A-items can be decided in any configuration, as there will be no discussion anyway. So any configuration can vote on them.
This is a way to speed up procedures and normally not a problem. But it has been used in the past to "sneak in" decisions in unexpected configurations. In the Software patent "war" times we had the decision on the directlve as an A-item in the Agriculture and Fisheries meetings a few times. We made some nice web banners to mobilise against that with the slogan "Something is fishy in the EU" ;)
If you conclude from this thread that I am a weird EU policy nerd, you are absolutely right. I think that sharing and explaining how the sausage factory works is extremely important. "The EU" is not some monolithic black box. It is run by people that in my experience really want to do The Right Thing for all EU citizens and they are really open for input and they do listen. So when you communicate with them in respectful ways with consistent and realistic demands, you can move mountains!
(also, and IMHO, the #fediverse is a good place to share these topics. My followers and their friends seem to be a friendly and respectful bunch of nice folks, that actively listen and hopefully learn a bit from my stories :)
@jwildeboer Somehow agrifish always ends up getting the copyright directives too. ^_^