Specifically this is being pushed by Ylva Johansson [1] from Sweden, who has (reportedly) financial connections to the organisation Thorn which is hoping to sell this chat monitoring software.
> Only the Commission can propose new legislation.
That is a technicality relying on a shallow look at the word "propose". The commission frequently takes direction from the council when deciding what to focus on which leads to them "proposing" legislation. In this case the push for this has come from the Council and certain national governments combined with a particular commissioner.
The Commission agenda and mandate is set by the Council that nominates it, and periodically reviewed by the same Council. Items are set in meetings, the agenda of such meetings is typically public.
If the Commission pushes, it's because the Council told it to push.
The Commission is formed by commissioners, each of which has been nominated by a different nation's government. The Council consists of actual members of the national governments.
The third party that can't propose legislation but has to approve it (and which strongly opposed this) is the Parliament, which is directly elected.
OK, this is probably some nuance of the English language that I'm missing as a non-native speaker, but I meant that the people that make up the Commission are not part of the national governments. The people that are part of national governments each get to nominate one commissioner though, in addition to being part of the Council.
The Council is as much part of the EU institution and as legitimate a part of them as the Parliament
There's no avatar of the EU manifesting out of thin air in brussels so it makes sense for the EU as a whole to bear the blame for the actions it takes, regardless of where it originated
I think the point is that the EU hasn’t actually taken any actions yet. This is just infighting between different arms of the EU governance structures, trying to figure out what actions should be taken.
So it is unfair to label rubbish coming out of the commission or council as something the EU has decided, when it’s only the first step of many for actually making a decision.
It would be like taking any random bit of legislation proposed by a member of congress, and labelling it as the collective stance of the entire U.S. government, completely ignoring the fact there’s a long road from proposal to enactment.
But commission and council aren't acting in a void (parliament neither), if there's appetite for a legislation amongst national governments the commission will work on a proposal
The same works to a lesser extent with the commission and parliament as well
