Policy & Law
30.10.2025

The View from Brussels #40-2025

News, Publications and Consultations from the Past Week

News CW 42 (13-19 October 2025)

DSA: 25 EU Member States, led by Denmark, are calling for mandatory European age verification and stricter rules to protect minors on social media in the so-called “Jutland Declaration”. While the EU Commission considers the Digital Services Act to be sufficient, the countries are pushing for more binding measures against addictive designs and are also considering the introduction of a “digital age of majority”.

AI: The European Commission has announced the construction of six new AI factories in Czechia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Spain and the Netherlands to give start-ups and industry access to AI-optimised supercomputers with investments of over 500 million euros. A decision on even larger “AI gigafactories” is still pending. There are several applications from Germany, while Digital Minister Wildberger warns of growing energy demand from new data centres.

Digital regulation: With the “Digital Omnibus”, the EU Commission plans to simplify European digital regulations, including the AI Act, GDPR and cybersecurity laws. However, concrete plans are still unclear. In the ongoing consultation, industry and associations are primarily calling for deadline extensions and relief for companies, while consumer advocates and NGOs warn against weakening existing standards.

Biometric data matching: According to a recent expert opinion, the biometric data matching with Internet images planned by the Ministry of the Interior is technically only possible with the help of prohibited databases and is therefore clearly contrary to EU law. Civil society and data protection advocates are therefore calling for the plans from the “Security Package 2.0” to be stopped once and for all and for the use of external facial recognition services to be prohibited.

Selected Publications from the EP Think Tank

Ongoing Relevant European Commission Consultations

Selections of CW 43 (20–26 October 2025)

Council:

The current preview of the Council’s work in the upcoming days until 2 November 2025 can be found here.

Summit and Ministerial Meetings:

Preparatory Bodies:

 

An overview of the various Council meetings can be found here.

Commission:

The agenda for the current Commission meeting was not available at the time of writing. You can potentially find it on the Commission’s website in the near future.

 

Parliament:

Plenary Sittings (STRA)

The agenda for the current plenary sittings week can be found here. From the perspective of the Internet industry, the following agenda items are relevant:

Decision to impose a fine on Google: Defending press and media freedom in the EU

Here you can find a list of the current schedule of the European Parliament. The calendar of the plenary sittings for 2025 is available here and the calendar for 2026 here.

Committees

LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties)
No meeting of the LIBE Committee is scheduled for this week.

The current timetables of the LIBE Committee can be found here.

 

JURI Committee (Legal Affairs)

The agenda for the extraordinary joint meeting of the JURI Committee and the Subcommittee on Human Rights on 20 October 2025 can be found here.

The current schedules for the JURI Committee can be found here.

 

ITRE Committee (Industry)

The agenda for the joint committee procedure of the ITRE Committee and the Committee on Security and Defence on 20 October 2025 can be found here.

The current timetables (as of 14 October 2025) for the ITRE Committee can be found here.

 

IMCO Committee (Internal Market)

No meeting of the IMCO Committee is scheduled for this week.

The current timetables of the IMCO Committee (as of 24 September 2025) can be found here.

 

CULT Committee (Culture and Education)

The agenda for the extraordinary meeting of the CULT Committee on 20 October 2025 can be found here. From the perspective of the Internet industry, the following agenda items are relevant:

  • Structured dialogue with Henna Virkkunen, Member of the Commission
  • Debate with Glenn Micallef, Member of the Commission, on the AgoraEU programme

The current timetables of the CULT Committee can be found here.

 

Outlook

An overview of the following session weeks can be found here. The provisional agenda for the upcoming plenary sittings can be found here.

 

European Court of Justice

You can find the judicial calendar of the CJEU here.

The View from Brussels
© Capri23auto | pixabay

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