political elites in Europe are afraid and fear upheavals are coming in the coming years and months because of the cost of living crisis and the war. They try to clamp down beforehand to preserve their own power. This always happens when things go bad. The leash is kept looser when people behave and it's tightened again when the opposite happens. There is no real freedoms that is given to the people by the elites, because what concessions they give willingly they can just as easily take away when they no longer feel like it. Provided that they think they can get away with it.