Scheduled to come into force by the end of the year, the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), the provisional agreement text of which was endorsed in plenary by MEPs in mid-March (see EUROPE 13370/28), specifies that each Member State must designate a national regulatory authority for AI.
To this end, the European Commission is due to send several letters to the 27 Member States, starting on Monday 8 April, urging them to make these appointments.
The Member States have 12 months to set up their national regulators, who must together form the ‘AI Office’, whose aim is to harmonise the approach of the law throughout the Union.
“We have deadlines to meet, and the Office must be up and running”, insisted Roberto Viola, the Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, on Wednesday 3 April. He in particular draws a parallel with the Digital Services Act, which also provides for the establishment of national coordinators (see EUROPE 13352/7).
The AI law is due to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union in June, and its initial rules will apply by the end of the year.
On the Commission side, the recruitment procedure to fill the technical posts in the European AI Office was open until 27 March. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)