Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden on Friday tweeted triumphantly that the European Union had voted to cancel all charges against him and prevent his extradition to the United States. "Game-changer," he called it.
Hearing reports EU just voted 285-281, overcoming huge pressure, to cancel all charges against me and prevent extradition. Game-changer.
A press release from the European Parliament confirmed the vote count, announcing that members of the European Parliament had voted to call upon member states to "drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender."
A closer look, however, shows that the vote does little to actually change the game. For starters, there were never any charges against Snowden within the EU to begin with. Even the United Kingdom, the country that had the most revealed when scores of documents leaked, has yet to formally bring charges against Snowden — though it has investigated whether British journalists who covered the revelations broke the law.
Second, the extradition rules that the EU has with the U.S. are still firmly in place. Along with the numerous bilateral treaties the U.S. has with EU member states, the supranational body entered into an agreement with the U.S in 2009 that supplemented the process. The most substantial restraint the agreement puts into place is that if Snowden were extradited to the U.S., the EU could request that the death sentence not be imposed or carried out.
Finally, the measure that passed through the European Parliament was a non-binding, non-legislative resolution. More important than the Snowden vote was a second resolution that passed at the same time, which called out the EU for not doing more to implement a previous resolution condemning the mass surveillance of Europeans. (Snowden gave testimony last year to the parliament via video chat prior to the resolutions adoption.)
Last year, the European Parliament voted down a proposal from the Green Party that would have called upon EU states to provide asylum to Snowden.