Brussels’ record DSA penalty turns unsafe online goods into a wider accountability case

The European Commission has fined AliExpress €550 million for breaching the Digital Services Act, accusing the online marketplace of failing to properly assess and reduce the risks posed by illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products sold through its platform. The decision is one of the clearest signs yet that Brussels intends to treat e-commerce platforms not merely as digital shopfronts, but as systems with direct responsibilities for consumer safety, fair competition and public trust.

The penalty, announced on 20 July, follows a Commission investigation into whether AliExpress had met its duties under the EU’s flagship online platform law. According to the European Commission’s decision, the company failed to diligently assess and mitigate risks linked to the sale of illegal, unsafe or counterfeit goods, including counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics.

For European consumers, the case is about more than one marketplace. It asks whether the convenience of low-cost, high-volume online shopping can be reconciled with basic safety guarantees that already apply in physical shops. The Digital Services Act was built around a simple principle: what is illegal offline should not be allowed to circulate unchecked online.

A Fine About Systems, Not Only Listings

The Commission said AliExpress fell short both in assessing risks and in taking effective measures to reduce them. That distinction matters. Regulators are not only questioning whether individual listings should have been removed faster, but whether the company’s wider moderation, trader control and product-checking systems were strong enough for a platform operating at large scale inside the EU.

Brussels found that AliExpress had not adequately evaluated how illegal or unsafe products could spread through its services. It also concluded that safeguards designed to stop those products from appearing or reappearing were not effective enough. Independent European reporting noted Commission concerns over staffing, automated detection and controls that sellers could allegedly bypass through product miscategorisation, while AliExpress disagreed with the fine and described it as disproportionate.

The company now faces a practical compliance deadline. AliExpress has until 20 October 2026 to submit an action plan setting out how it will address the shortcomings identified by the Commission. If the plan is inadequate, or if implementation fails, further enforcement measures could follow.

Why Marketplaces Are Now in Focus

The decision extends a pattern in EU digital enforcement. For several years, much of the public debate around platform regulation focused on social networks, disinformation, political speech and children’s exposure to harmful content. But online marketplaces have increasingly moved to the centre of the same regulatory conversation because their risks are not abstract: unsafe products can enter homes, classrooms and workplaces.

The European Times has previously covered how the EU’s DSA scrutiny widened to e-commerce in the Shein proceedings, where concerns included illegal products, addictive design and recommender-system transparency. The AliExpress fine makes that shift more concrete. It shows that Brussels is willing to move from investigation to sanction where it believes a platform has failed to control systemic product risks.

For smaller European businesses, the case also carries a competition angle. Companies that comply with EU safety rules, labelling standards and product checks often face higher costs than sellers who ignore them. If large marketplaces allow non-compliant goods to circulate easily, responsible traders are placed at a disadvantage and consumers may struggle to distinguish safe products from unsafe ones.

Consumer Protection as Digital Rights

The DSA is often described as a technology law, but this case shows its human dimension. A dangerous cosmetic, a faulty toy or a counterfeit product is not only a regulatory breach. It can affect health, family safety and the ability of consumers to make informed choices. The Commission’s enforcement approach therefore links digital governance with everyday rights: protection from harm, access to reliable information and fair treatment in the marketplace.

That does not remove the need for due process. AliExpress can contest the decision through the EU legal system, and the Commission must be able to defend both its findings and the proportionality of the penalty. Large fines can make headlines, but the lasting test is whether enforcement produces safer systems rather than one-off announcements.

The next stage will be watched closely by other platforms. If AliExpress proposes credible changes, Brussels may point to the case as evidence that the DSA can force practical reform. If the dispute becomes a prolonged legal battle, it will help define how far the EU can go in holding global marketplaces responsible for the goods they help circulate.

Either way, the message from Brussels is no longer theoretical. The EU is telling major online platforms that scale brings duties, and that consumer safety cannot be outsourced to terms of service, automated filters or after-the-fact removals alone.

Compromise text moves Paris closer to one of Europe’s strictest child online safety rules

French lawmakers are moving toward final approval of a bill that would bar children under 15 from accessing social media, after deputies and senators reached a compromise designed to take effect from the start of the 2026 school year. The measure places France at the centre of Europe’s fast-moving debate over children’s rights, platform design and privacy-safe age checks.

The compromise was deposited on Monday by a joint parliamentary committee, according to the French National Assembly’s legislative dossier. The text is due for public debate on Tuesday, 21 July, as Parliament enters the final stretch before the summer recess.

If adopted, the measure would prohibit access to online social networking services for minors under 15. It would exempt online encyclopaedias, educational or scientific directories, and open-source digital education projects. The bill is scheduled to enter into force on 1 September 2026, with a four-month transition period for accounts created before that date.

A national law inside a European argument

The French proposal arrives just days after the European Commission published the recommendations of its special panel on child safety online. The Commission said Europeans are deeply concerned about risks faced by children on social media, including cyberbullying, harassment, grooming and sexual exploitation, and that nearly two thirds of respondents want EU rules restricting children’s social media access by age.

The Commission has said the panel’s work will inform EU-level proposals after the summer, making the French vote more than a domestic school-year policy. It is also an early signal of how national governments may act while Brussels weighs a common framework for age-appropriate digital services.

The European debate is not simply about whether children should spend less time on screens. It is also about who carries responsibility for harmful online environments. As The European Times reported in its recent coverage of child safety online, regulators are increasingly looking at platform architecture, recommendation systems and addictive design rather than placing the burden only on parents and young users.

Protection, privacy and proportionality

Supporters of the French bill argue that a clear age floor is needed because voluntary parental controls and platform promises have not kept pace with the scale of online harms. They point to mental-health concerns, exposure to violent or sexual content, harassment and the difficulty families face in enforcing limits against services built for constant engagement.

Rights advocates and digital policy specialists, however, warn that age bans can create new risks if they rely on intrusive identity checks or push children toward less regulated spaces. A durable system would need to verify age without building large databases of children’s identities, excluding vulnerable young people from support networks, or limiting access to legitimate educational and civic information.

That tension is now the centre of the policy question. A ban may be politically clear, but enforcement will depend on technical systems, regulatory coordination and the willingness of major platforms to redesign services around children’s rights rather than only around user growth.

For France, the immediate question is parliamentary approval. For Europe, the larger question is whether national measures become a patchwork of different age limits or the starting point for a coherent EU approach. The European Commission has already signalled that it intends to present proposals based on the special panel report after the summer.

If the French bill passes, its practical effect will be watched closely by governments, schools, parents, child-rights groups and technology companies across the bloc. The result may shape not only how Europe restricts children’s access to social media, but how it defines platform responsibility in the digital public square.

Tamás Sulyok’s removal clears an Orbán-era obstacle but intensifies debate over how Hungary should rebuild its democratic institutions

Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok has signed a constitutional amendment that terminates his own mandate, ending a confrontation with Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s new government. The measure forms part of a wider effort to dismantle institutions inherited from Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power, but human rights organisations and constitutional experts warn that democratic renewal must itself respect legal safeguards.

BUDAPEST — Hungary’s president has signed into law a constitutional amendment that brings his own term in office to an early end, marking an extraordinary new stage in the country’s transition away from the political system built under former prime minister Viktor Orbán.

Tamás Sulyok signed the amendment on Saturday, the final day of the period available to him. His mandate is expected to end at midnight on Monday, after which National Assembly Speaker Ágnes Forsthoffer will temporarily assume the functions of president.

Parliament must then elect a new head of state within 30 days. Hungary’s president is elected by lawmakers rather than by a direct popular vote.

An extraordinary presidential signature

Sulyok, a former president of Hungary’s Constitutional Court, was elected head of state by the then Fidesz-controlled Parliament in 2024. His five-year term was originally due to continue until March 2029.

However, Prime Minister Péter Magyar repeatedly called on Sulyok and other senior officials appointed during the Orbán era to resign after Magyar’s centre-right Tisza party secured a two-thirds parliamentary majority in the April 2026 election.

Magyar accused the president of failing to defend Hungary’s constitutional system during years of democratic decline. Sulyok rejected that criticism, arguing that the presidency should remain above party-political disputes.

When Sulyok declined to step down voluntarily, the new majority amended Hungary’s Fundamental Law to state that the incumbent president’s mandate would end after the provision entered into force.

In a statement explaining his decision, Sulyok said that he had “no constitutional means to challenge this amendment”. He maintained that the measure violated constitutional principles, even though Parliament had adopted it through the legally established procedure.

Refusing to sign, he said, would itself have placed him in breach of his constitutional duty.

Changes reach far beyond the presidency

The seventeenth amendment to Hungary’s Fundamental Law does considerably more than remove Sulyok.

It introduces a limit of 12 years, or three electoral terms, for members of Parliament. Sitting mandates are not immediately affected, but the restriction could prevent numerous long-serving Fidesz politicians — potentially including Orbán — from standing in future elections.

The amendment also imposes a retirement age of 70 on Constitutional Court judges and reduces future judicial terms from 12 to nine years. The age limit will end the tenure of the court’s president, Péter Polt, and affect several other judges appointed under the previous government.

At the same time, the reform restores some review powers previously removed from the Constitutional Court, changes the procedures for selecting senior judicial officials and establishes a National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Office. The new body will be responsible for tracing and recovering public assets believed to have been unlawfully handled or transferred.

Magyar presents these measures as necessary to prevent officials loyal to the former government from obstructing democratic and anti-corruption reforms. His administration has also closed the controversial Sovereignty Protection Office and suspended the news service of public television and radio pending restructuring.

These actions form part of the broader reorientation of Hungary’s relationship with the European Union following years of conflict over judicial independence, media freedom, corruption and civil society.

Can democracy be restored through exceptional measures?

The objectives of the reforms — stronger judicial independence, effective anti-corruption controls and the restoration of institutional checks — broadly correspond with changes long requested by European institutions and civil society organisations.

The method used to remove the president, however, has created a difficult rule-of-law question: whether a large electoral mandate permits a government to alter the constitution for the purpose of terminating the mandate of a particular officeholder.

Amnesty International criticised Sulyok for failing to speak out against arbitrary practices under Orbán but concluded that the government’s removal procedure was “not the right approach”. The organisation stressed that Sulyok was entitled to a fair process and legal safeguards.

The European Commission’s rule-of-law demands have focused on judicial independence, anti-corruption protections and fundamental rights. They did not include the removal of the president.

That distinction matters. Democratic reconstruction is not measured only by the institutions a government abolishes or replaces. It is also measured by whether changes are predictable, proportionate and subject to meaningful review.

Orbán and Fidesz have portrayed Sulyok’s removal as evidence that Magyar is replacing one form of concentrated power with another. Orbán warned that if such a measure could be used against the president, other officeholders could also be vulnerable.

That criticism carries political irony after years in which Orbán’s governments repeatedly used parliamentary supermajorities to reshape Hungary’s constitution and extend political influence over state institutions. Nevertheless, the previous government’s record does not remove the need to examine the new government’s actions on their own merits.

A wider constitutional reset is still ahead

Magyar has promised a broader process to replace the Fundamental Law adopted under Orbán in 2011. A new constitution is expected to be prepared through public consultation and submitted to a referendum.

That process could provide an opportunity to rebuild confidence in Hungary’s constitutional order. Its credibility will depend on whether opposition parties, civil society, judges, legal experts and minority communities are able to participate meaningfully.

The choice of Sulyok’s successor will offer an early indication of the government’s direction. A president perceived only as a loyal representative of the new majority would reinforce concerns that political control is changing hands rather than being limited. A broadly respected and independent candidate could instead help restore trust in the office.

Hungary’s change of government created an opportunity to reverse years of institutional decline. Sulyok’s departure removes one of the last senior officeholders appointed during the Orbán period, but it also demonstrates the risks involved when constitutional power is used to resolve political disputes.

For Hungary’s democratic renewal to endure, the new authorities will have to show that the rule of law is not simply a tool for removing the old order. It must also restrain those now entrusted with building the new one.

Riga’s rising Belarus frontier numbers are forcing a regional debate over security, solidarity and migrant rights

Latvia is facing renewed pressure on the EU’s eastern frontier as attempted crossings from Belarus rise sharply, pushing Lithuania to weigh whether temporary checks on its border with Latvia may become necessary. The episode has turned a familiar security dispute with Minsk into a wider Schengen question: how Europe protects its borders without letting vulnerable people become instruments in a political confrontation.

Latvia’s State Border Guard said that on Thursday, 16 July, 111 people were stopped from illegally crossing the Latvia-Belarus border, bringing the total reported this year to 8,253. The figures point to a sustained shift in pressure toward Latvia after years in which Lithuania, Latvia and Poland have all accused Belarus of directing migrants toward the EU border as a form of coercion.

For Riga, the issue is not only operational. Latvian officials describe the crossings as part of a hybrid campaign linked to Belarus’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine and to wider efforts to strain EU institutions. But the people at the border are not abstractions in that contest. Many are third-country nationals caught between smugglers, authoritarian pressure tactics and EU states determined to prevent irregular entry.

A border problem becomes a Schengen problem

The pressure is now spilling into relations between Baltic neighbours. Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT, reported by Latvia’s LSM, said Lithuania’s incoming interior minister had not ruled out temporary controls with Latvia if secondary migration cannot be managed by other means. Lithuanian officials said secondary migration from Latvia had risen fourfold compared with the first half of last year.

That possibility matters because the Schengen area depends on trust that external borders are being managed effectively, while internal border controls remain exceptional. Once one member state restores checks, others often face pressure to follow, with consequences for cross-border workers, transport, trade and the wider sense of a common European space.

The European Commission’s own Schengen guidance says internal border controls are a measure of last resort and must be limited by necessity and proportionality. That principle is becoming harder to defend politically as member states cite overlapping threats: irregular migration, smuggling networks, Russian sabotage risks, pressure on asylum systems and the war in Ukraine.

Security cannot erase rights

The Baltic states have strong grounds to take Belarusian tactics seriously. Since 2021, Minsk has been accused of facilitating migrant movements toward EU borders in retaliation for European sanctions and support for Belarusian democratic forces. Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have invested heavily in border infrastructure and have repeatedly extended emergency or enhanced security measures.

Yet a rights-based approach requires more than naming Belarus’s strategy. It also requires examining how EU states treat people who may have protection claims, health needs, family vulnerabilities or exposure to trafficking. Pushbacks, prolonged limbo and opaque procedures can turn a legitimate security response into a legal and humanitarian failure.

That tension has appeared across Europe’s wider border debate. As previous European Times reporting on Schengen controls has noted, Brussels has been trying to preserve open internal borders while acknowledging member states’ security concerns. Latvia’s case shows why that balance is becoming more fragile on the eastern flank.

Solidarity has to be practical

For Latvia, the immediate need is manpower, coordination and predictable support from neighbours and EU agencies. For Lithuania, the concern is that pressure at Latvia’s external border may reappear as secondary movement inside the Schengen area. For the EU as a whole, the risk is that every new episode of border pressure normalises internal checks and weakens common asylum safeguards.

The answer cannot be either complacency or panic. Belarus’s use of migration as pressure should be confronted as a security challenge. At the same time, Europe’s response should remain anchored in law, individual assessment and humane treatment. The credibility of the EU’s frontier policy depends on proving that both commitments can hold at once.

Latvia’s border numbers are therefore more than a national security statistic. They are a warning about the stress now placed on Schengen, on Baltic solidarity and on Europe’s ability to defend borders without abandoning the people who arrive at them.

Brussels says reforms are moving, but civil-society groups warn that media freedom, protest rights and civic space still need stronger protection

The European Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report has put a sharper question before EU governments: whether annual democratic monitoring can now produce practical change. Published on Friday and still shaping Brussels debate on Saturday, the report records progress on national recommendations, but rights groups argue that civic space, media freedom and checks on executive power remain vulnerable across the Union.

The 2026 Rule of Law Report reviews all 27 EU Member States, as well as Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, across four areas: justice systems, anti-corruption frameworks, media pluralism and freedom, and institutional checks and balances. It is the latest edition of a monitoring cycle that has become one of the EU’s main tools for identifying democratic pressure before it becomes a full institutional crisis.

This year’s report says 47% of the recommendations issued in 2025 have been followed up by Member States either fully or partially, with at least limited progress on another 23%. The Commission presents that as evidence that its annual review is helping to steer reforms. But the same figures also show that a significant share of recommendations remain unresolved, while some of the most sensitive problems involve political incentives that technical dialogue alone may not fix.

From diagnosis to enforcement

The report’s significance lies less in its yearly publication than in what comes after it. For years, the EU has struggled with a familiar democratic dilemma: it can identify patterns of pressure on courts, media, civil society and anti-corruption bodies, but its response often depends on lengthy legal procedures, difficult votes among governments, or budget measures that are politically contested.

The Commission now says its recommendations are becoming more targeted and operational, and it links rule-of-law performance to the next EU long-term budget. That matters because democratic safeguards are not abstract Brussels values. They determine whether journalists can investigate public money, whether courts can restrain government power, whether civil-society groups can operate without intimidation, and whether citizens have remedies when authorities overreach.

For enlargement countries, the inclusion of Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia as part of the report’s monitoring frame is also important. The EU is asking candidate countries to align with democratic standards while some Member States continue to face unresolved concerns of their own. Credibility requires both: fair scrutiny of aspiring members and serious follow-up inside the Union.

Civic space remains the unresolved warning

Civil-society organisations have welcomed rule-of-law monitoring as necessary, but many argue that it still underestimates the pressure facing associations, protesters, human-rights defenders and independent media. A joint civic-space contribution coordinated by Civil Society Europe warned before the report that peaceful assembly, freedom of expression and the enabling environment for civil society were facing restrictive trends in several Member States.

That warning should not be treated as a side note. In practice, civic space is where the rule of law becomes visible. A court may be formally independent, but if activists face punitive administrative rules, journalists are buried under lawsuits, or minority communities cannot challenge state action, democratic protection becomes uneven. Monitoring justice systems and anti-corruption bodies is essential, but it is not enough if the people who expose abuse are left exposed themselves.

The Commission’s dialogue-based approach has advantages. It can encourage reforms without immediately turning every concern into a confrontation. It can also help governments that genuinely want to repair weak institutions. But dialogue has limits when authorities use legal forms to narrow public participation, concentrate media influence or weaken oversight while insisting that national procedures have been followed.

Hungary shows why repair must be concrete

Hungary remains one of the clearest examples of how rule-of-law scrutiny can move from diagnosis to democratic repair only if institutions are renewed in practice. Recent European Times coverage has argued that Hungary’s current reset should reach beyond courts and corruption to include privacy, access to information and minority rights, areas where citizens often encounter state power most directly. The debate over Hungary’s rule-of-law reset illustrates a wider EU problem: replacing political leadership does not automatically rebuild trust in watchdogs, regulators and public authorities.

The same lesson applies beyond Hungary. A rule-of-law report can identify whether a country has changed a law, adopted a strategy or reorganised an institution. The harder question is whether those changes protect people when it matters: when a reporter seeks public-interest information, when a protest is restricted, when a court reviews executive action, or when public money flows through opaque structures.

That is why the Commission’s 2026 report should be read as both progress and warning. The progress is real where governments have responded to recommendations and opened reforms. The warning is that democratic decline rarely arrives as one dramatic rupture. It often appears as a series of administrative burdens, budget pressures, media ownership changes, politicised appointments, delayed transparency and normalised limits on dissent.

A budget-era rule-of-law debate

The coming EU budget negotiations will test whether rule-of-law findings are treated as polite annual paperwork or as conditions for a functioning Union. If public funds are to support cohesion, security and competitiveness, citizens need confidence that money is managed under independent courts, transparent institutions and free public scrutiny.

The Commission is right to frame the rule of law as connected to prosperity and security. Businesses need legal certainty. Citizens need impartial courts. Journalists and civil society need space to examine power. Minority groups need effective remedies, not only constitutional promises. These are not competing priorities; they are the infrastructure of democratic life.

The 2026 report therefore lands at a decisive moment. It shows that the EU’s monitoring cycle can encourage movement. It also shows that movement is not the same as completion. The next step is follow-through: clearer timelines, firmer consequences for persistent non-compliance, and a more visible place for civic space in the Union’s democratic assessment.

For Europe, the question is no longer whether the rule of law can be measured. It is whether the findings will protect the people who depend on it.