Leaders of Parliament’s political groups got a letter from four European commissioners on Wednesday, urging them to solve the issue and allow their members to break ranks in the crucial vote, POLITICO first reported. Merz, speaking in the country’s parliament on Wednesday, also called for the law to be extended.
Large platforms Meta (which owns WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, Snapchat, Google, Microsoft and LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) said in a joint statement last week that the EU’s inability to reach a deal was “irresponsible.”
“Failure to act will reduce the legal clarity that has enabled companies for nearly 20 years to voluntarily detect and report known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in interpersonal communication services,” the tech giants said, pushing for a solution ahead of Parliament’s vote.
Child rights groups and tech companies have also long pressed lawmakers to allow scanning to continue.
A spokesperson for the Cypriot presidency of the Council of the EU, representing EU national governments, said it was “regrettably not possible” to reach an agreement. It “remains committed” to getting an agreement on a long-term policy to combat child abuse online, the spokesperson said.
The temporary law that was voted down this week was a workaround to allow platforms to find CSAM content. The European Union is negotiating another, permanent law to fight child sexual abuse online, but those negotiations have also hit disagreements and deadlocks in past years.
This article was updated.