Member States’ ambassadors to the European Union (Coreper) failed on Wednesday 21 October to agree on EU Council conclusions on the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital change, with Poland being the cause of the blockage. Instead, they approved “EU Council Presidency conclusions”, supported by 26 countries, according to a European source.
The last open point concerned Poland’s request to replace the word “gender equality” with “equality between women and men” in the text, arguing that this term is used in Article 23 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The country had made the same request on conclusions on the opportunities offered by digitisation in the field of access to justice (see EUROPE 12570/6). The blockage was finally overcome by deleting the term “gender equality” from the text.
However, no compromise could be reached on this text at the videoconference meeting of EU Justice Ministers on 9 October (see EUROPE 12578/6). The German Presidency of the EU Council had then indicated that it would continue its bilateral contacts with delegations with a view to trying to reach an agreement.
In general, the text stresses the importance of the principles of equality and non-discrimination in the design, development, deployment, use and evaluation of AI, in particular in systems incorporating automatic learning, and of ensuring that such systems are subject to adequate safeguards and supervision, including market surveillance (see EUROPE 12576/11). (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)