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It begins. The EU lawmaker who was in charge of digital affairs during 🇪🇺President von der Leyen's first term has been banned from entering the United States, because the 🇺🇸 tech giants and government don't like the EU's tech laws. What will be the 🇪🇺President's response?

This is a critical test for European leaders. 🇪🇺President von der Leyen notoriously loathes her former digital commissioner. But if she and Macron let stand that the US can ban EU lawmakers simply because the government doesn't like EU laws, that is a watershed moment in European servility.

Still no response yet from 🇪🇺President @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu to the US government following through on its threat to sanction 🇪🇺lawmakers over digital laws But the Commission and Council chair Costa have put out statements on X in the past hour (interestingly, still no statements here on Bluesky)

The 🇪🇺Commission "strongly condemns the 🇺🇸decision". The EU has "the sovereign right to regulate economic activity in line with our democratic values and international commitments." "If needed, we will respond swiftly and decisively to defend our regulatory autonomy against unjustified measures."

🇫🇷President Macron has posted this reaction to the 🇺🇸 sanctioning former 🇪🇺Digital Commissioner @thierrybreton.bsky.social (again only on X and not Bluesky). Breton is the former CEO of the giant France Télécom (Orange). The shocking and unprecedented nature of this can't be overstated.

🇫🇷President Macron has met with former 🇪🇺Commissioner Breton to discuss the US sanctioning him and said that he will defend him from this American attack.

🇪🇺President von der Leyen has just posted this very vague statement, linking to the Commission statement. If you just read her statement, you'd have no idea that anything serious has just happened with the US. As usual, she will not mention the US or Trump by name for criticism.

An important point here: this is not just about EU lawmakers being banned from entering the US. As the ICC judges & Francesca Albanese have found out, being sanctioned means you can't carry out basic daily tasks like banking, because Europe's economy is America-controlled.

From what I read on the State Department website it is a visa ban - that according to a LinkedIn post by Anna-Lena von Hodenberg also affects family members (!), but the Reuters article leaves some ambiguity in comparing it to the case of French judge Nicolas Guillou (International Criminal Court).