The European Union is moving to a significant restriction on the use of social media by children, according to a new proposal gaining support in Brussels.

The proposal, notes Politico, led by Greece and already supported by France and Spain, sees the EU set new rules for massively restricting the use of social media by children, amid growing concerns about the effects of excessive internet involvement.

The issue has earned increased attention worldwide, as Australia has set a minimum of 16 years of age to register with accounts on certain social networking sites since late this year.

According to a document that came under Politico’s possession, these countries wish Brussels to go further, introducing the whole EU an age adulthoodunder which minors will need their parents’ consent to connect to social media – which means that children will not automatically access any of the most popular applications such as Tiktok, Instagram and Snapchat.

The proposal is to be discussed by EU digital ministers at a meeting in early June and comes as Denmark is preparing to take over the rotation of the EU Council for a semester, in which Copenhagen has already committed to take action in Brussels.

“The protection of our children on the internet will be a top priority for the upcoming EU Danish Presidency,” Danish Digital Affairs Minister Caroline Stage Olsen said in a statement. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has also stated in the past that it supports the ban on social media for children under 15 years.

The proposal was sent to other countries on Thursday to seek their support before the council meeting, an EU official said with the knowledge of the issue.

This is a sign that European governments are not happy at the rate at which Brussels regulators take action and join forces in a new attempt to prevent excessive exposure of children to social networks. The protection of minors from online dangers “requires collective action at European level”, the proposal said.

This move comes after French President Emmanuel Macron’s attempt. “We need to regain control of the lives of our children and adolescents in Europe, and impose digital adulthood at the age of 15, not earlier.”stated in April 2024, inventing the phrase digital adulthood, implying a legal definition of age under which children should be banned by certain online behaviors.

The Commission is already processing some measures focusing on existing regulations, such as the Law on Digital Services, which sets the rules for online platforms.

However, the proposal would see the EU go much further – with compulsory age verification and parental control on the devices, as well as “European rules” to minimize certain functions. These include features such as automatic reproduction, personalization and pop -up windows designed to increase the attractiveness of applications and keep users online for a longer period.

The document suggests that the age verification is done at the device level, which companies such as Apple and Google will probably oppose.

It is noted that France has already voted measures to exclude access to social media for children under 15 in 2023, although they have not yet been fully implemented. Macron’s Deputy Minister of Digital Policy, Clara Sapaz, has been campaigning to persuade other countries to take action at the EU level in recent months.

Greece stresses Politico, which is leading the proposal, has launched a similar campaign, although its view is that the complete ban does not work, as Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said. Instead, Athens wants to focus on age verification and demand platforms to design their services with minors, avoiding addictive characteristics. As a result, many of the points of the proposal remain general.

The proposal is signed by Sapaz, Greece’s Digital Politics Minister Dimitris Papastergiou and Spanish Digital Politics Minister Oscar Lopes Angena. The three countries have also been selected to test an application for the verification of the age developed by the Commission, Politico said earlier.