Immediate restoration of child protection online is essential, but the EPP Group will continue fighting for more

With today’s swift Council agreement, the EPP Group has successfully delivered on its promise to close the dangerous legal vacuum that has left children unprotected online for over three months. While the Council’s endorsement of the European Parliament’s position clears the final hurdle for the immediate entry into force of the Interim Regulation, the EPP Group stresses that the temporary fix is still far from the comprehensive solution needed.

"The EPP Group has been clear from the very beginning: this dangerous legal vacuum should have been avoided. While others played political games and delayed the process with amendments, our priority remained absolute: to get these vital detection tools back online. Thanks to this swift agreement from the Council, we have delivered the responsible safety solution European citizens demanded," said Javier Zarzalejos MEP, EPP Group spokesman on the issue.

"The EPP Group remains the driving force for security in Europe, and our determination has not wavered," Zarzalejos added. "This interim solution is a vital emergency measure to restore basic safety online, but it is only a temporary fix. Our focus now turns entirely to the permanent regulation. We will settle for nothing less than a robust, comprehensive, and long-term framework that leaves no blind spots for predators to exploit."

Since the previous rules expired, EU tech platforms have been legally barred from voluntarily flagging child sexual abuse material (CSAM). This created an unprecedented online blind spot, with as many as 55,000 reports of child abuse missed every single day. Historically, up to 99% of reports of child abuse material have originated from voluntary searches by the platforms, and 4 out of 5 criminal investigations were triggered by those reports.