Devil's advocate, but why not?

I don't like Chat Control and I believe privacy should be guaranteed, but Europol seems quite relevant in this matter.

Because laws represent the will of the people, not the will of the police. The individuals in Europol are already offered the same representation as the rest of us and the various branches of the EU legislative bodies can always call on them for consultation on specific matters.

That doesn't work very well. If you have a concern you need to voice, you can't rely on waiting for being consulted. I'm really not interested in a system where you are not allowed to speak up.

Police is supposedly for protecting people's interests, ideally.

Naively, as a citizen I want to be protected from crime and I'm interested in Europol, experts on crime investigation across Europe, getting what they need to do their work and expressing their needs.

Of course I'm also not interested in privacy being thrown away.

Those two things apparently clash, and a healthy debate can help find an acceptable solution.

I actually largely agree with you but

> Police is supposedly for protecting people's interests, ideally.

Police is supposedly for enforcing the law regardless of whose interests that serve. Making that enforcement easier isn't always a net positive for society, even when the laws themselves are just.

The law supposedly protects the people's interest. Ideally.

Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world and I agree with you that in practice, law enforcement isn't always a net positive.

Police has its own subset of incentives and goals, and is not a transparent institution protecting citizens. It is made of humans that are prone to corruption, power abuse, ideological bias, and so on.

Police [...] is not a transparent institution protecting citizens

It's its role, theoretically (I don't know about transparent, but protecting citizens for sure).

Of course, the reality is not ideal.

Problem is that theory very commonly doesn't match reality when dealing with humans.

Police may prefer to suppress freedom to achieve its goal, which is crime reduction. Or it may stop caring about difficult or dangerous problems (say, drug dealing cartels), and reorient into harassing the civilian population for petty things, such as policing distasteful memes on the internet.

A country where police decides the laws is called a police state. Do you feel that citizen's rights are well respected in such places?

If police feels confident enough to "express" the need to overthrow basic constitutional rights, you should be worried about how it is managed and what's coming for you. After all, they are the guys with the big sticks who make everyone obey.

Police forces in Europe have been lobbying for this kind of measures so eagerly that it can even turn out to be a national security issue, I fear. What if the police will end up siding with Russian and/or Chinese invaders, or with a some kind of domestic extremist movement, attempting to set up an authoritarian regime.

Well, you don't have much say in the EU as a citizen. Its judiciary isn't accessible to you.

We are taking about expression, not decision power, in this thread.

Must be nice to have any trust in your police forces.

That's not what I'm saying! :-)

Unfortunately, I don't have much of this. I wish I could!

Happy you wrote this so I could clarify this point.

Because of the separation of powers. The police are the executive. They ENFORCE the laws, and only enforce them. They should not be involved in the legislative that makes those laws, or the judiciary that interprets/applies the laws.

This is rule of law 101, and has been figured out hundreds of years ago. Without separation of powers, you cannot have rule of law.

We are not talking about power or decision making, we are talking about expression.

I think any organism should be able to express their needs and voice their concern.

That's of course not the same thing as deciding.