Notices by Alexander Fanta (fantafanta@mastodon.social)

I find this really telling about the state of tech sovereignty in the European Union - five years after launching the project, the Council of the EU still does not have a secure video link for secret meetings. The ambassadors have to meet in person! Every time! They want to discuss anything marked "secret"!

Check it out in our newsletter:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/europes-car-lobby-still-drivers-seat-follow-the-money-eu-girje/

🚨 Data protection news 🚨

Regulators in charge of Europe’s privacy laws have quietly rejected guidelines that could have pushed thousands of public authorities across Europe – including themselves – to quit their social media accounts, Follow the Money has learned.

I guess at least some people will rejoice at Trump’s wanton dismantling of the US intelligence apparatus.

While Musk and Zuckerberg pander to Trump and move to dismantle meaningful content moderation on their platforms, the European Commission keeps their dirty laundry locked in the closet.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-commission-secrecy-does-musk-zuckerberg-favour-z1hze/

@sl007 Nice, thanks. I flagged it to our team.

Think of the 723 billion euro Covid recovery fund. Where did the money go?

Think of the time a Commissioner got hacked with Pegasus. Who did the job?

Think of the Commissioner who stayed at luxury hotels in Gulf autocracies. Who footed the bill?

Think of von der Leyen's text messages with the CEO of Pfizer. What did they agree about vaccines?

Our goal is simple: to track and call out the EU’s transparency gaps. This isn’t about ticking legal boxes: access to information is a basic right for all Europeans.

When institutions fall short on this, it’s not just journalists who lose out – it’s all of us.

Remember, transparency isn’t a bonus feature: it’s essential for holding EU institutions to account. This is about more than journalists pushing for answers; it’s about making sure these institutions serve the people they represent.

And it's not just the Commission. In the EU Treaty, the Council is meant to become a sort of Senate, a co-legislator. But the Council still makes its laws in secret, openly flaunting its obligation to proactively publish documents on its deliberations.

This is unacceptable.

The state of transparency is untenable.

The EU's own watchdog, the Ombudsman, agrees: “It’s almost as if Regulation 1049 [the EU’s transparency law] doesn’t exist.”

“It seems to us that if the Commission doesn’t want to release a document, for whatever reason, it simply won’t.”

So, where can I follow this?, you might ask.

Here's the brand news first edition, hot off the press: https://ftm.eu/secrecy-tracker-what-the-eu-is-hiding

In the link there's a signup for our newsletters. We'll be out bi-monthly. Watch this space.🤓🥸🧐

But we’re not here to just point out what’s going wrong. We’ll also spotlight wins, sharing cases where journalists were able to bring important public interest stories to light based on documents obtained through requests. We'll track all things EU transparency.

So proud to announce this 😁😁😁 - today, journalists from three media organizations – Follow the Money, EUobserver and Investigate Europe – are launching a new newsletter to expose the lack of transparency within the European Union.

We call it the Secrecy Tracker. Why we are doing this now?

The European Commission tends to treat transparency like a decoration – nice to look at, but not for actual use.

Under President von der Leyen, things have gotten worse.