“Our work” is “more difficult, more adversarial” than anticipated, Agarwal admitted Monday.
Withstanding the pressure from the U.S. is “much bigger than the DSA itself,” he continued. “It has to do with the intellectual space that we [as Europeans] occupy.” He added that Europe must “defend a space in which we can actually debate things that are important for our society.”
Agarwal said that “one sad thing” about the current environment is that the space for open debate has shrunk. DSA workshops have become closed-door events at the request of companies, and fewer people come to Brussels to give talks on related topics.
Agarwal said colleagues have also started sending messages via Signal, an encrypted app, rather than email, and many now have messages set to auto-delete, with the “auto-delete timings getting shorter.”
The Commission’s leadership previously sought to reassure staff whose names and emails were included in the U.S. Congress report, writing in an email seen by POLITICO that the institution stands by officials and will seek to protect them from threats.
