In an open letter published on Thursday 3 July, nearly 50 CEOs of major European companies call on the European Commission to propose “a two-year ‘clock-stop’” on the implementation of certain obligations of the regulation on artificial intelligence (AI), in particular those relating to general and high-risk models (see EUROPE 13634/7).
The signatories warn that “unclear, overlapping (...) regulations” could “threaten the EU’s competitiveness in the global AI race”.
“This two-year window should be used to simplify and align the digital regulatory landscape, in particular through the forthcoming ‘Digital Omnibus' and ‘Digital Fitness Check’”, they write.
The ‘Code of Practice’ on general AI models is now the subject of renewed criticism (see EUROPE 13668/21): the guidelines it is intended to provide on how to implement the regulation are at the heart of the debates and are the subject of an intense lobbying campaign by several large US companies (see EUROPE 13631/14), starting with Meta, which announced many months ago that it would not support the recommendations of the ‘Code’ (see EUROPE 13574/11).
It is due to be published on 10 July, according to several sources, but the section on intellectual property and the protection of artistic works has yet to be finalised (see EUROPE 13610/3).
While the AI Act came into force in August 2024, many of its provisions relating to general AI models will not apply until next summer, or even until 2027. However, the Commission, for its part, will only be able to impose penalties on AI providers that infringe EU rules from 2 August 2026.
The “grace period” supposedly granted to suppliers could therefore only concern the timetable for implementing the ‘Code of Practice’, with the end of 2025 as the horizon, and not the implementation of the AI Regulation itself.
Further consideration of the simplification of the AI Act is expected to take place during the drafting of the ‘Digital Omnibus’, a legislative text aimed at simplifying the EU’s digital rules, which is scheduled for November.
In June, the Commissioner for Technological Sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, did not rule out the possibility of considering the postponement of certain parts of European legislation, but urged caution.
“When we talk about simplification, it doesn’t mean that we are downgrading certain hard-to-achieve objectives. We are looking to simplify processes, reporting obligations and reduce bureaucracy, but we need to bring legal certainty to the market”, she said (see EUROPE 13655/3). (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)