Vox MEPs Girauta and Buxadé skip the chat control vote

Girauta and Buxadé skip the chat control vote: strategy or indifference?

The European Parliament voted this week on one of the most controversial digital privacy measures: chat control, a system that would require platforms to scan private communications for illegal content. But two of the six Vox MEPs, Juan Carlos Girauta and Jorge Buxadé, were not in the chamber. Their absence did not go unnoticed.

"They were absenting themselves so they could later say they never supported such a totalitarian measure," some analyses suggest. The suspicion is not new: with the ELbichito passport, certain parties were already accused of voting in favour and then distancing themselves by claiming they did not know what they were signing. In this case, abstaining avoids having to justify a vote.

Official figures show that four of the six Vox MEPs did vote against, a clear majority within the group. But the overall number is puzzling: more than 100 MEPs did not vote, a mass abstention that dilutes individual responsibility. "And does it seem normal to you that 100 didn't vote?" observers ask.

• 4 out of 6 Vox MEPs voted against chat control.
• More than 100 MEPs did not take part in the vote.

The move by Girauta and Buxadé, both known for their hard line against "proge ideology" and state control, seems contradictory at first glance. But it fits a pattern: stay away so as not to leave a trace, and be free to criticise afterwards without anyone remembering their own vote. The problem is that, with more than a hundred absences, the gesture dissolves into a silent majority that also refused to take a stand. In the end, chat control moves forward, and the absence of two MEPs only fuels distrust of those who preach against the system but do not deign to fight it with their vote.