Europeans Bristle at EU Digital-control Agenda
In mid-May, two high-profile challenges added growing resistance to the European Union’s expanding digital oversight. Dutch lawyer Meike Terhorst and Polish President Karol Nawrocki delivered strong rebukes against what critics describe as Brussels’ overreach on digital identity and online speech regulation.
Speaking at a European Parliament outreach event for the Europe of Sovereign Nations Group, Terhorst dismantled the legal basis for the EU’s digital identity push. “The digital ID will become a digital twin of you,” she warned. Crucially, she emphasized that the EU lacks authority to impose such a system because “the EU is not a state or a country” and “cannot sit on the chair of the member states.” Member states, she argued, retain the right to reject implementation. For citizens, her advice was direct: if issued a digital ID, “just dump it.”
Terhorst further noted that digital IDs are often issued not by sovereign governments but by a “cartel” of banks and Big Tech firms, placing the system above national legal and political frameworks. She linked implementation to censorship and propaganda through corporate media, urging resistance to both. Her remarks resonated with audiences wary of surveillance infrastructure that could track finances, health, behavior, and movement.
“Administrative Censorship”
Complementing this legal critique, Poland took concrete action. President Nawrocki vetoed legislation implementing the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) at the national level. The DSA aims to regulate online platforms, including content moderation, “trusted flaggers,” and penalties for alleged disinformation. Nawrocki argued the state should “guarantee freedom, not restrict it,” warning against “administrative censorship” and invoking Orwell’s 1984 “Ministry of Truth.” While the core DSA regulation remains EU law, the veto blocks Poland’s enforcement machinery.
The EU promotes digital tools for “convenience” and safety, but skeptics see a framework for social credit-style control, reduced privacy, and suppressed dissent. Digital IDs could enable exclusion from services for non-compliance, while DSA-style rules risk turning platforms into de facto censors aligned with official narratives on climate, migration, health, or politics.
The European Union was originally framed as an economic community of sovereign nations, not a superstate dictating code halos, digital twins, and speech codes. (That was the reputed goal. Of course, subverting national sovereignty was the true intent.) As Terhorst and Nawrocki demonstrate, member states and informed citizens can still push back. True sovereignty resides with nations and peoples, not with unelected Big Tech firms that exist beyond the elective control of the people, or bureaucrats who operate on behalf of transnational capital.
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