Key Tech Policy Issues in EU Hearings

It is always great to see something published that you have worked on for a considerable amount of time – but in this case, it feels really special. AI Act, GDPR, DSA, finance, medical devices, automotive regulation: so many things close to my (academic) heart, and I could combine them all in one study on the frictions, interdependencies, and ways forward through this regulatory jungle. Here are the key policy recommendations, structured by addressees, many more in the study, someone counted 25 :). Important: Almost all of them can be achieved without any diminished protection of fundamental rights.   European Legislators   1. Designate a "Lead Act": Assign a leading regulatory framework for each sector, such as the AI Act or sector-specific laws, to reduce conflicts and enhance coherence. If that Lead Act is complied with, compliance of the other designated acts should be presumed, unless some specific provisions are exempted from that rule. Example: Art. 17(4) AI Act, one of my favorite norms in the Act, a hidden gem ;)   2. Clarify AI Act-GDPR Alignment: Address contradictions, such as differing responsibilities for AI providers under the AI Act and data controllers under the GDPR, and rules for training AI on personal data.   3. Develop Safe Harbor Standards: Create technical standards that provide compliance with the AI Act AND related regulations.   4. Conduct Regular External Reviews: Periodically and EXTERNALLY evaluate the AI Act's implementation to address contradictions, regulatory gaps and new technological challenges.    European Commission (AI Office and Sectoral Authorities)   5. Enhance Risk Analysis for Hybrid Platforms: Develop integrated guidelines for platforms that incorporate generative AI, addressing systemic risks under both the AI Act and the DSA, and the mutual reinforcement of the specific platform and GenAI risks.   6. Expand Data Access for Research: Establish mechanisms for vetted researchers to access both platform AND AI system data, inspired by the DSA’s Article 40.   National Legislators and Authorities   7. Support SMEs: Introduce grant programs to help small and medium-sized enterprises comply with AI Act and sector-specific regulations. This could, for example, fund access to training programs.   8. Foster Oversight Synergies: Clearly institutionalize the necessary collaboration between national data protection, sectoral and AI Act oversight authorities for cohesive enforcement. Be agile and project-based in solving cases involving multiple Acts.   Standardization Bodies   9. Develop Unified Standards: Provide technical standards for the AI Act AND sectoral regulations.   Industry and Civil Society   10. Encourage Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: Establish advisory groups combining industry, academic, and civil society expertise and liaising with the national AI authorities to address sector-specific challenges.   Many thanks to Bertelsmann Stiftung, Julia Gundlach and Asena Soydas for enabling this!        

📰 Excluding non-EU companies is not the right path for our tech development My latest for EUobserver 🌍 In a world facing bleak demographic projections, economic growth will hinge on productivity gains, themselves increasingly dependent on technological progress. This is why technology is at the heart of geopolitical competition. 🚨But be careful: 1️⃣There may be no such thing as full dominance in technology. The current competition between🇺🇸and🇨🇳shows this. While the US leads in semiconductors, cloud computing, and AI, China is a global leader in solar panels, EVs, lithium batteries, drones, and high-speed rail. 2️⃣Being at the forefront of innovation may not be enough. What truly matters is having a productive ecosystem capable of adopting those innovations and translating them into tangible productivity gains. 🇪🇺 The EU fears losing ground in the global tech race. 2️⃣strategic pitfalls should be avoided: 1️⃣ Excluding non-European companies solely on the basis of origin → this would only lead to technological isolation and prevent European firms from accessing leading-edge technologies, ultimately undermining competitiveness 2️⃣ Replicating foreign models → diverting resources instead of building on🇪🇺own competitive advantages 🔎 To illustrate these points, I look at two key technologies: cloud computing and AI. ☁️ Cloud computing A few non-EU firms dominate the🇪🇺market, and there might be a temptation to introduce “Buy European” clauses. This would be fundamentally misguided. ✔️ As I argue in my latest policy paper for the Center for the Governance of Change, the EU already has the tools to ensure competitive cloud markets. The priority should be a three-pillar response: 🔹 Stronger competition law enforcement 🔹 Closing regulatory gaps through oversight of software licensing and interoperability 🔹 Strategic public procurement that supports European providers without excluding non-EU ones 🤖 AI The US dominates virtually every segment of the AI value chain. In response, the EU launched the AI Continent Action Plan. While promising in some areas, the push for Gigafactories risks massive investment with little impact given the scale mismatch with US firms. ➡️For instance, Meta alone will surpass 1.3 million GPUs by end-2025, while Europe’s five planned Gigafactories would jointly deliver around 500,000 chips only by 2028. ✔️ Rather than replicating brute-force strategies, Europe should pursue its own model — rooted in competitive but regulated markets, strategic demand power, smart specialisation, and trustworthy innovation. 📌 What Europe needs is a coherent approach grounded in four principles: 1️⃣ Fully enforce competition law 2️⃣ Build on Europe’s comparative strengths 3️⃣ Use trade defence instruments if necessary, but ❌ never exclude companies solely for being non-EU 4️⃣ Ensure that European firms can adopt and benefit from emerging technologies Link: https://lnkd.in/dxn6MbNN

European Parliamentary Research Service: The #geopolitics of #technology: Charting the EU's path in a competitive world The emergence of a contested multipolar world, one that is increasingly inward looking and unstable, has been paralleled by profound technological change and deepening digitalisation of economies and societies. Technology has become a battleground in the geopolitical quest for power. Global technological rivalries – broadly divided between countries promoting liberal and human-centric governance models and those deploying technology to support authoritarianism – are reshaping the world. Other undecided countries are meanwhile sitting on the fence. A case in point is the intensifying Sino-American tech rivalry, including in the pivotal artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors sectors. In addition to its deep impact on economies and competitiveness, technology is also at the core of geopolitical struggles through its deployment in cyberwarfare, election interference and misinformation. Supporting open trade, a multilateral order and global standards have always been among the EU's fundamental principles. To safeguard those values and navigate this new, challenging, fractured and confrontational environment, the EU has been developing a policy toolkit for quite some time. Additionally, it has frequently been a front-runner in regulating critical emerging technologies, while also establishing partnerships with allies and like-minded countries, safeguarding its internal market and addressing technological vulnerabilities and strategic dependencies. Since the underlying trends are unlikely to weaken, the issues at the nexus of geopolitics and technology are expected to feature prominently on the European Parliament's agenda during its 2024-2029 legislature. Experts recommend that to maintain its normative heft, the EU needs to build its industrial prowess by boosting its technological capacity, investing in digital infrastructure and financing innovation. The EU should also strengthen ties with like-minded countries and engage the Global South, expand its economic security policy and enhance the Global Gateway initiative. Boosting competitiveness and striking the right balance between autonomy and openness as well as between security and free trade, remain the key challenges in a world shaped by multiple crises and disruptive technologies.

Yesterday in Brussels 🇪🇺 I raised some concerns about the future of AI in Europe during the debate “Strengthening Competitiveness - A Chance or a Necessity for the European Union.” ❓ Here are the three key issues I raised. I’d love to hear your thoughts. 🤔 Let me be clear: I’m NOT against regulation—I fully support rules that align with global standards. However, overregulation will have massive ripple effects. The reality is that the AI Act will cause a one-year delay in access to the newest AI models, creating a huge competitive disadvantage! In my view, it could push many companies—and some of the best talent—out of the EU within the next 12 months. While this might seem like a small group at first, the impact will be significant... 1️⃣ A barrier for STARTUPS The AI Act risks slowing innovation in Europe. Fragmented regulations across EU countries add costs and delays, hitting startups the hardest (additional costs and time). For smaller companies relying on foundational AI models, a one-year delay can eliminate competitive advantages. ❌ Example: Just yesterday, OpenAI launched SORA (text to video AI model) —but not in the EU. While some managed to use VPNs to access it, this was blocked today, further limiting access. This kind of regulatory friction risks driving talent and businesses abroad and denies Europeans a fair chance to compete globally. 2️⃣ A need of investments in LOCAL MODELS Most AI models are trained on English datasets, leaving local languages and contexts underrepresented. Why? Nearly half of all online content is in English, yet only 13% of people globally are native English speakers. Europe must invest in local AI models and improve data access to reflect its cultural diversity. Without this, weak local AI outputs could harm economic competitiveness and further widen the gap between Europe and other regions. Finally, the most important point! 3️⃣ Economies of different speeds At CampusAI Polska, we see how AI boosts productivity, but adoption speeds vary widely between countries. With AI agents arriving next year, this gap will grow. Countries slow to adapt risk falling behind, while faster adopters gain an edge. Tech companies focus on selling software but overlook the need to reimagine work, reshape culture, and adapt business models. To benefit from AI, we must unlearn outdated practices. We failed to educate properly during social media adoption—let’s not repeat that mistake with AI. 🚀 If you want to learn more, visit www.EUneedsAI.com, a site created by entrepreneurs and AI leaders to explain why this matters. Let’s work together to ensure Europe doesn’t just keep up but leads the AI revolution.

While Europe aims for "digital sovereignty" and "strategic autonomy", we're missing the most obvious weakness in our strategy: Preventing European tech infrastructure from being sold to the highest bidder from the US or China.   The consequences are playing out right now: Solvinity, providing essential Dutch government IT services, was just sold to an American company (only a month after the City of Amsterdam opted for Solvinity to reduce dependence on US tech providers). Nexperia, providing chips for our car industry, was sold to a Chinese company in 2021 and paused supplying to European customers. Let’s be clear: Digital autonomy doesn't mean anything when our IT infrastructure is for sale.   And the stakes are high. Digital policy expert Francesca Bria just launched a website called The Authoritarian Stack (https://lnkd.in/e2mWi5qZ) - documenting how American tech billionaires are actively working to dismantle democratic institutions and reshape digital infrastructure according to their political agenda.   European digital policy currently assumes our infrastructure providers are and will remain neutral service companies. That theory is far from reality – it’s naïve and dangerous. We need to recognize that IT infrastructure ownership can equal political power.   So, if we aim for digital autonomy, we need our IT infrastructure to be autonomous. We need to prevent it from being sold to the highest bidder.   We need to complete our policy framework for digital autonomy with ownership models like steward-ownership, or stop wasting time on digital autonomy. via Mieke van Heesewijk, Sophie Bloemen, Neil Smyth, Riël Notermans, Melanie Rieback

When AI innovation meets human rights: Navigating Europe's health tech landscape New research reveals critical tensions at the intersection of artificial intelligence, intellectual property, and human rights in European healthcare systems. 🔴 Key findings that should concern health policymakers: The Transparency Paradox: AI developers need trade secrets to protect investments, but patients and clinicians need transparency to build trust. Current EU legislation attempts this balance, but leaves much to judicial interpretation. ⚠️ The Bias Amplification Risk: Text and data mining exceptions in EU law may actually worsen health inequities. When AI training data favours well-represented populations, underrepresented communities fall further behind. Medical education biases risk becoming permanently encoded in AI systems. The Black Box Problem: Billions of parameters with no clear logic model challenge both IP frameworks and the right not to be subjected solely to automated decision-making (GDPR Art 22). 💡 A Critical Insight: IP protection only applies when humans remain in the creative loop. AI as ‘sole inventor’? No patent rights. AI as tool? IP protection possible. 53 laws and treaties were analysed across Europe, revealing that datasets, software, hardware, outputs, and even graphical interfaces can claim IP protection, but with widely varying interpretations. The bottom line: We need urgent clarification of ‘public interest’ and ‘legitimate interest’ concepts in health systems. The current framework prioritises digital sovereignty and commercial interests, but at what cost to health equity and accessibility? 🟡 This isn't just about legal frameworks. It's about whose health data trains tomorrow's AI, who benefits from medical innovation, and whether European health systems can balance innovation with universal access. @Robin van Kessel, Jelena S., Hannah van Kolfschooten, Sam Feudo, Katie Young, Laura Valtere, Timo Minssen #DigitalHealth #HealthPolicy #ArtificialIntelligence #HealthEquity #IntellectualProperty #HumanRights #HealthcareInnovation #AIethics #EUHealthPolicy #DigitalSovereignty #HealthTech #MedicalAI #HealthData #Innovation #HealthSystems #LSEHealth Open access: https://lnkd.in/e4xw-TTQ

Last week, following what happened in Davos (https://lnkd.in/eidEsUCw), Ursula von der Leyen announced a plan to cut red tape in AI regulation -- a "simplification agenda" -- (https://lnkd.in/e_Y6qg5C) and the European Commission presented plans to step up efforts to compete with the US and China and prevent industrial decline, with a focus on AI (https://lnkd.in/e3U5Tfqp). The EU’s regulatory strategy for AI (including the AI Act) is not just about risk management—it’s a geopolitical maneuver to define digital sovereignty. By developing ex-ante obligations absent elsewhere, the EU aims to export its regulatory model through market conditioning like it did with the GDPR: firms seeking access to the EU market need to conform, effectively exporting EU norms. The EU’s new push for regulatory “simplification” reflects a growing recognition that this approach risks creating barriers for new or smaller players (potentially from the EU) who lack resources to navigate compliance requirements, consolidating power in large, well-resourced (mostly American and Chinese) companies. The new shift toward easing regulatory burdens seems to aim to balance oversight/enforcement of ex-ante rules with flexibility for these players, but any relaxation of ex-ante controls could create disparities in how AI risks are managed across member states. While the AI Act and other instruments that complement it introduce quite comprehensive obligations, a real challenge is their enforcement because regulatory fragmentation can dilute their impact. The success of this recalibration, in the end, depends on the ability to maintain harmonization in risk-minimization while allowing room for (socially beneficial) AI innovation by EU players.

The CEOs of Airbus, ASML, Ericsson, Mistral AI, Nokia, SAP, and Siemens have asked EU President Ursula von der Leyen for a coordinated set of policy actions to make Europe globally competitive in tech, industry, and AI. Their requests make a lot of sense to me. 1️⃣ Regulatory simplification. Reduce and simplify Europe's digital rules so they function as 'agile guardrails' rather than rigid, detailed requirements. This includes preserving contractual freedom to create data spaces, protect IP, and enable industrial AI without overlapping constraints. They explicitly warn against regulating ahead of innovation. 2️⃣ Sectoral and capital policy. Market-driven policy support coordinated with national strategies, backing flagship projects, and fully realising the Savings and Investments Union to catalyse private capital. 3️⃣ Competition and M&A reform. Reform competition and M&A regimes to enable strategic consolidation and the scale needed to compete globally. Essentially, allow European champions to merge and grow. 4️⃣ Dual-use innovation. Break down civil-military silos to accelerate dual-use technology and drive adoption of trusted (European) tech. 5️⃣ Sovereignty through IP. Fiercely support and scale homegrown European innovation rather than consuming foreign IP, plus invest in workforce skills and mobility. 6️⃣ Geo-economic strategy. A unified industrial and trade approach that protects European interests while enabling international competitiveness. 7️⃣ A standing business-policy forum. A dedicated venue where CEOs and policymakers continuously align so policy stays grounded in industrial reality. These CEOs are making a pitch that Europe can lead the world in industrial AI, applying AI to physical systems, infrastructure, and robotics. Europe has missed out on a leadership position in generative and agentic AI. It has a chance to step up and lead the world in physical AI from its rich industrial base. These companies account or 418B Euros in revenue, 1.1T in market cap, 40B in R&D investment, and almost a million jobs. I hope the EU is listening. The time to act is right now. Arturo Bris IMD Richard Baldwin Simon Evenett David Bach Benjamin Bjerkan-Wade #SuperEurope

There are three main points when it comes to European tech sovereignty: data, market and capital. The EU is still lacking all of these. The problem? 👉 We have overregulated our data economy without creating any real value. 👉 We still do not have one common market area. 👉 And we lack the competences to build a true Capital Markets Union. Member states cling to taxation, their pension funds or insolvency laws. But then, can we really ask for European champions at the same time? Yes, the EU’s efforts to constrain large US tech companies are necessary, but the problem lies not in the why but in the how. 💡The way we have done it has mostly created a regulatory maze for our own companies. If a European firm dares to grow, we will split it up. Meanwhile, US giants treat compliance as just the cost of doing business here and that is even if we manage to actually enforce our own rules. The EU needs urgently to act: 1. Focus on our own companies - put European cloud, cyber and software companies first in public procurement. 2. Make sure our digital laws do not punish European scale-ups with gatekeeper rules designed for others. 3. Put a price on European data and make sure it is part of the trade negotiations so that we are not giving it away for free to Trump and Xi Jinping. ☝️ And make the European capital market reality. This cry out goes to all Heads of State and finance ministers immediately. Europe must push bigger European mergers in the tech sector, have attractive tax conditions for our own companies to scale in Europe, and be sure that you can do business easily all over Europe - including encouraging experts to move around the continent and having a European business ID for companies. ☝️ It’s high time to put Europe first, not just in words but in market, data and capital. 🫵 Are you with me and what else is missing? #techsovereignty #data #europe #tech

🛑 EU AI Act Faces Pause?: High-Risk Rules Spark Compliance and Innovation Concerns – Read a 1-Minute Brief Mario Draghi suggested pausing the implementation of certain parts of the EU AI Act to assess potential drawbacks, especially those for high-risk AI systems. Businesses and clarity are central to his call. ➡️ Key takeaways → The AI Act’s next phase (high-risk systems, enforcement duties) brought uncertainty; Draghi calls to “pause” implementation until drawbacks are clearer. → Businesses (including major firms) are pushing for more time and clearer guidance, arguing that current rules risk hampering innovation. → Gaps in oversight: unclear which national authorities will enforce rules in many member states. → General Purpose AI (GPAI) guidance is delayed; companies are uneasy with compliance obligations without enough regulatory clarity. → The EU is preparing a ⚠️ “digital omnibus” package expected in #December, intended to review existing tech legislation, possibly easing burdens for companies (e.g., reducing reporting or transparency obligations). →Civil society warns that delaying or weakening will erode accountability and the core protections built into the AI Act. ➡️Who should follow this topic: → EU and national policymakers responsible for AI regulation and enforcement. → AI companies, especially those working with high-risk or general-purpose AI models. → Civil society organisations concerned with ethics, human rights, and regulatory oversight → Legal and compliance teams navigating EU regulatory frameworks - Investors and industry analysts evaluating the risk/impact of regulatory uncertainty in AI ___ ➡️My comments: The upcoming review of European tech legislation could strengthen Europe’s innovation ecosystem if executed well. ⚠️But if mishandled, it risks favoring global tech giants and undermining the high-standard reputation of European industry, which is Europe’s core value. In my upcoming article (newsletter link below), I explore why this is a pressing dilemma for policymakers in Europe and globally, and reveal key lessons from other industries that can inform stronger, more resilient AI governance and regulation, and share the latest updates. Sources for this post: Euronews, MSN (see links below). ___ Hi, I’m Karin Tafur. I help organizations adopt AI responsibly, navigate regulatory requirements, and enhance workforce skills. ◼️ You’re welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn: Karin Tafur ◼️ Subscribe to my AI Newsletter for expert insights on EU AI regulation and global AI News  (see link in Comment 1). ◼️ Explore corporate training programs to upskill your team and enhance AI readiness  (see link in Comment 2). Thank you for your comments, likes, and support!