Part of book page explaining terrorism

Brussels gives Portugal two months to comply with rules to combat online terrorism. The regulation came into force on June 7, 2022 and, in addition to Portugal, Estonia, Ireland, Luxembourg and Poland are in non-compliance.

The European Commission on Wednesday gave Portugal two months to transpose the European Union (EU) regulation on combating the dissemination of terrorist content online (CTL) into national law, under penalty of prosecution.

The CTL regulation, which came into force on June 7, 2022, establishes rules to ensure that hosting service providers, who make users’ content available to the public, combat the misuse of their services for the dissemination of terrorist content online.

In a statement, the EU executive points out that Portugal, as well as Estonia, Ireland, Luxembourg and Poland, have failed to comply with one or more of the obligations arising from the regulation, such as the obligation to designate the authorities competent to issue removal orders and to notify those authorities to the Commission.

The countries concerned have two months to notify Brussels of their compliance with the rules, failing which the case will be referred to the EU Court of Justice.