In a report published on Wednesday 29 May, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) comes down hard on the Commission’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy.
The European auditor deplores the lack of coordination of measures taken at European level, the poor monitoring of projects financed by the European Union, and the lack of truly targeted investment with a defined and quantified goal.
Admittedly, measures have been taken, particularly in terms of regulation. However, while acknowledging these advances, the ECA believes that to date, these measures have “had a limited effect in developing the EU AI ecosystem and did not accelerate AI investment in line with global leaders”.
“In the absence of governance, coordination between the EU and the Member States is ineffective”, deplores the auditor, who points to the EU’s falling behind China and the United States and fears that Europe will be left behind in the race for innovation.
“The EU’s investment targets are too vague and outdated [they haven’t changed since 2018] and their lack of ambition contrasts with the goal of creating a globally competitive AI ecosystem”, the auditor observes with disappointment.
In this report, the ECA makes a number of recommendations to the Commission to remedy the problems mentioned: re-evaluating targets in light of global advances; introducing a standardised legal framework at European level (including a data market); and strengthening the monitoring of EU funding.
“If we believe that the key success factors for AI are linked to funding, scale and political will, then the support the EU provides from its budget needs to be concentrated and centralised”, said a senior official. “We don’t know how the next budget will be built. But based on recent discussions regarding strategic autonomy, it could be heading in the right direction”, he nevertheless hoped.
If it is not too late for the EU to catch up, it is at least necessary to “act quickly”, according to the European Court of Auditors.
See the ECA report: https://aeur.eu/f/cf8 (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)