Eurobloat #0180 • April 2025
April opened with Brussels reviving its dream of reading everyone's encrypted messages, and closed having declared a trade war and surrendered it inside a day.
Folly of the Month: the twenty-four-hour trade war
On 9 April, in high dudgeon at American tariffs, the EU approved almost €21 billion of retaliatory measures on soybeans, motorcycles, motor boats, orange juice and more. On 10 April it suspended them for ninety days. A bloc that musters its great collective might, brandishes it for a single news cycle and then quietly puts it away is not a superpower; it is a committee that lost its nerve before lunch the following day.
1. ProtectEU, or the dream of the universal backdoor
On 1 April the Commission unveiled "ProtectEU", an internal security strategy that resurrects the old ambition of giving police a way into encrypted communications. The fond belief that you can build a backdoor only the good guys will ever use never dies in Brussels, however many cryptographers explain that you cannot.
2. Your private data, decrypted by 2030
The plan sets a course towards "lawful access" to encrypted data later this decade, which is a polite way of saying your private messages should not stay private if an official would like to read them. The target date is 2030; the principle should worry you today.
3. Even the digital rights groups smell dystopia
European Digital Rights called ProtectEU a step towards a digital dystopian future. When the people who spend their lives reading EU security proposals reach for the word "dystopia", it is worth listening.
→ edri.org
4. The €21 billion list, frozen mid-air
The retaliation menu ran from poultry and motorcycles to orange juice and toilet paper, all suspended before a cent was collected. Threats you withdraw the next morning are not leverage; they are theatre.
5. The "simpler rulebook" that is mostly recycled
On 28 April the Commission published its plan for a simpler, clearer rulebook, which analysts judged to be longstanding measures dressed up as new ideas. Cutting red tape is welcome; announcing it for the fourth time is just a press release.
6. Seven hundred million for daring to design a phone
On 23 April the Commission fined Apple €500 million and Meta €200 million under the Digital Markets Act, the first penalties handed down under that law. The charge sheet was that Apple steers users where it pleases and that Meta offers a pay-or-consent choice Brussels dislikes. Fining American firms €700 million for how they arrange their own shops is not consumer protection; it is a tariff collected by lawyers.
→ digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu
7. A passport for your mattress
On 16 April the Commission published its first Ecodesign working plan, which will require digital product passports for textiles, furniture, mattresses, tyres and more, each item carrying a scannable file of approved data. When the union decides that a sofa needs paperwork to prove it exists, the appetite for regulating ordinary objects has plainly outrun any need for it.
8. The one sensible idea, and even that is half-hearted
On 16 April the Commission proposed a first EU list of safe countries of origin, including Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco and Tunisia, so that hopeless asylum claims could be fast-tracked and returns made simpler. Letting nations send back those with no case is plain common sense; that it took Brussels this long, and still leaves national lists untouched, tells you how reluctantly it was conceded.
9. A security strategy that mistrusts the citizen first
For all its talk of crime and threats, ProtectEU's instinct is to treat every European's private life as evidence waiting to be unlocked. A union that began by guaranteeing freedoms now itemises the ones it would like the keys to.
Enjoyed this post?
Well, you could share the post with others, follow me with RSS Feeds and/or send me a comment via email.
Tags
Category:
Year: