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> It doesn't matter what country they reside in, if a valid court order is produced it must comply.

A USA court order is not going to get much compliance from a German/Swiss company.

> my understanding is that there is minimal meta data to hand over as the message contents are unreadable without the keys.

That may well be true at the moment (I believe so, anyhow), but it's entirely possible for the USA administration/security services to force any U.S. company to install backdoors and not be allowed to mention it to anyone.

An American court order, meeting American legal standards, does not necessarily produce results when delivered to a German or Swiss entity.

The implication that eu is (rightfully) butthurt and don't what to relay on usa if there is the risk of meddling of any kind or blackmailed with denial of service (regardless if it makes sense here or not, this is entirely political).

And there is also the darker side of some eu parties pushing for more surveillance, and in that case stuff like signal would be kind of a problem as well.