Digital freedom strategy in the EU's external policy

MEPs have called for the prohibition of the export of certain technology products and services allowing jamming, surveillance, monitoring and interception of information to countries severely violating human rights. According to the MEPs, such information is very often used by authoritarian regimes as tools to control and repress societies and therefore they should be qualified as 'single use' items. As a consequence, the EP today asked for the establishment of a regularly updated list of countries violating the freedom of expression for which export of those items should be banned.

"Promoting and protecting Internet freedom should be a part of all the EU external actions. We are faced with the rapid development of technology in the field of telecommunications, software and hardware. We should appreciate the role of the Internet in building social identity, promoting democracy and organising civil societies. The Arab Spring, as well as the recent events in Russia and Belarus, have proven the need for such a role. However, information and communication technologies are often used by authoritarian regimes to track and repress dissidents and block online content. Such technologies should be considered as 'single use' items", said Paweł Zalewski, Shadow Rapporteur on behalf of the EPP Group and author of the amendment that calls for the establishment of the list of countries affected by such an export ban. This amendment goes much further than the ALDE Rapporteur's original proposal which was limited to demanding only an ex-ante approval of the exported technologies.

In the Report adopted today, the European Parliament also calls on the European Commission and the Member States to acknowledge digital freedom as a fundamental right and an indispensible condition for the full enjoyment of human rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and access to information.