The European Commission is blasting the State Department’s sanctioning of five high-profile individuals, including the former commissioner who led the charge on Europe’s Digital Services Act, saying its claims of a “global censorship industrial complex” are unjust and undeserved.

The executive arm of the European Union said Wednesday that travel restrictions on the five are unjustified retribution in response to laws they say are designed to create safe digital environments. It said it may respond “swiftly and decisively” to defend its “regulatory autonomy” against the measures after seeking “clarifications” from U.S. officials. 

“Freedom of expression is a fundamental right in Europe and a shared core value with the United States across the democratic world,” the commission said in a statement. “The EU is an open, rules-based single market, with the sovereign right to regulate economic activity in line with our democratic values and international commitments.”

The State Department announced Tuesday that it was sanctioning five Europeans for their roles in ushering in what it described as “oppressive and anti-free expression policies, fines, and regulatory overreach.”

The sanctions are a response to the imposition of rules like Britain’s “Online Safety Act” and the EU’s Digital Services Act, shepherded by one of the sanctioned officials, a former EU commissioner, Thierry Breton. The European Commission says the Digital Services Act, passed by a 90 percent vote in the European Parliament in 2022, was created to “ensure a safe, fair, and level playing field for all companies, applied fairly and without discrimination.”

The State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy, Sarah B. Rogers, told Britain’s GB News that laws like Britain’s Online Safety Act, which permit “extra-territorial” censorship of American opinions shared on American platforms, is a “red line” and a “dealbreaker.”

Mr. Breton is joined on the sanctions list by the head of Europe’s Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed; the chief of the U.K.-based Global Disinformation Index, Clare Melford; and the co-founders of the German organization, HateAid, Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon.

The State Department said the five individuals led “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.” Calling out “radical activists and weaponized NGOs,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the five have advanced censorship crackdowns in Europe targeting American speakers and American companies, specifically.

“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” Mr. Rubio posted on X announcing the sanctions.

Ms. Rogers said that while the sanctioned individuals are not Americans, some “collaborated” with American officials to suppress speech on issues including vaccine mandates, immigration, transgender policy, and American sovereignty.

The Trump administration’s animus toward European speech laws is well-known. In February, Vice President JD Vance blasted European leaders during a speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he said censorship and uncontrolled immigration pose greater security threats to Europe than the Russia-Ukraine war. 

In May, Mr. Rubio announced the State Department would implement visa restrictions on foreign officials who are “complicit in censoring Americans.” It then paused visa appointments for foreign students seeking to enter the United States, saying it would examine whether they had posted anti-American sentiments on their social media accounts.

The sanctions, which are solely travel-related and not financial, come shortly after the European Commission slapped Elon Musk’s X with a $140 million fine for breaching transparency obligations under Europe’s Digital Services Act. Mr. Musk responded by calling for the abolition of the EU.

Several European officials criticized the new American sanctions, including President Emmanuel Macron of France. “The rules governing the European Union’s digital space are not meant to be determined outside Europe,” he posted. “These measures amount to intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty.”

“Is a wind of McCarthyism blowing again?” Mr. Breton asked in an X post. “To our American friends: ‘Censorship is not where you think it is.’”

Elevating the implications of the State Department’s decision, the American ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, said escalating  censorship tactics in the EU could prevent the continent from benefiting from America’s AI revolution. 

“These American companies are best positioned to make the investments, build the data centers, provide the cloud access, employ the sophisticated programming and software at the levels necessary to make the EU a meaningful AI economy participant,” he posted on Wednesday. 

“They are willing to do more and more is required, but not at the risk of crippling fines and and prosperity-killing regulatory overreach that censures free speech and hobbles economic growth.”