The recently approved law controlling access to social networks by minors, which implies an intrusion into the privacy of all citizens – who will be forced to use the Government’s digital mobile key before accessing their Instagram – is also another part of a huge puzzle of removing the family’s autonomy in the education of their children (in a process of infantilization of the individual symptomatic of collectivist societies, as we have criticized in recent weeks in this space).
The Portuguese center-left parties – where the current PSD unapologetically fits – are thus embarking on a European trend that will be the final defeat (in a very short time) of the free European project itself. And, consequently, of Europe, which thousands of free men died defending on the beaches of Normandy.
In 1988, Margaret Thatcher took to a platform in Bruges to issue a warning that History turned into reality: freedom is not defended through the centralization of power, but through its dispersion. Today, it is enough to look at the institutional building in Brussels to see that the European project has reversed this logic. Under the guise of “protecting democracy”, the EU has constructed an architecture of control that mirrors the worst of Soviet centralism and the most advanced Chinese digital authoritarianism.
If the first step towards the destruction of democracy is the emptying of its representative institutions, in the EU, as is well known, the European Parliament (the only body where citizens have a direct vote) is an echo chamber with no power of legislative initiative. The real power resides in the European Commission, a “Nomenclature” of unelected commissioners who have a monopoly on what can and cannot be discussed. This structure is a direct heir to the USSR hierarchy – just like the Politburo decided the fate of millions of square kilometers without ever being accountable to the suffrage, the Commission decides the fate of European nations through technical directives that trample on national sovereignties.
Thatcher realized early on that this “democratic centralism” was the enemy of freedom. When the “protection of democracy” becomes an administrative task managed by bureaucrats, the people cease to be the sovereign and become the object of management.
But if the EU’s structure is a Soviet model, the control technology is today inspired by Beijing. After all, we are in the 21st century. XXI! The European Union’s recent crusade against “disinformation”, embodied in the Digital Services Regulation (DSA) – and whose inspiration gives things like the ban on social networks to minors and the like, such as chat control… – is the perfect example of how democracy is destroyed in its own name.
By giving itself the power to define what is “truth” or “fake news”, the Brussels bureaucracy is slowly creating a Western version of the “Great Firewall“Chinese.
In another very obvious example: the administrative ban on Russian news channels, decided without any transparent judicial process, after the invasion of Ukraine, was a true test of stress for this model. The argument used – that these voices are dangerous to democratic stability – is exactly the same one that the Chinese Communist Party uses to silence dissidents. When the State (or a suprastructure such as the EU) decides what citizens can and cannot hear for “their own good”, democracy is dead; what remains is a guardianship regime.
The nightmare Thatcher warned us about wasn’t just about excessive bureaucracy or rules about the size of fruit. It was about losing control. With the planned introduction of the Digital Euro and the European Digital Identity, or the ban on social media for minors (here, locally, but to the delight of most Eurocrats) the EU is preparing to close the noose. As in the Chinese Social Credit system, the ability to participate in society and the economy will depend on an infrastructure run by technocrats that no one elected and no one can fire. And that we all think the same way.
Thatcher knew that freedom is messy, noisy and often dangerous. But he also knew that the alternative – a clean, quiet and controlled technocratic order – is the death of a nation’s soul. The European monster is fulfilling the prophecy: in the name of democracy, it is building a system that risks being the most undemocratic the West has ever seen.
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