MEPs on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) overwhelmingly approved, on Tuesday 13 February, the Interinstitutional Agreement on artificial intelligence (AI Act) (71 votes in favour, 8 against and 7 abstentions).
The European co-legislators had finally managed to strike a balance on the text last 8 December, after a final round of negotiations lasting more than 37 hours (see EUROPE 13311/17).
The text will still have to be voted on by the European Parliament at the plenary session on 10 and 11 April. It will then have to pass through the hands of the Member States to be formally ratified.
On 2 February, the permanent representatives of the EU27 had given the green light to the provisional political agreement on the AI Act, following weeks of negotiations during which several Member States, led by France, had lobbied for greater flexibility on certain aspects of the text, in particular the provisions relating to the most powerful AI systems (see EUROPE 13342/2). (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)