In it dealings with the United States, the European Commission is still opting for dialogue. On Wednesday 1 April, the European Commission announced that it was in “talks” with Washington “to set up a dialogue aimed at strengthening cooperation in the field of digital technologies and markets”.
This announcement comes at a time when the disagreements between the two parties over the regulation of the digital sector are as heated as ever, and when several giants in the sector have challenged the management fees required by the Digital Services Act, to which they are subject, before the Court of Justice of the EU.
X, the first platform to be fined under the Digital Services Act (DSA), also contested the fine (see EUROPE 13813/10).
At a press briefing during his tour of the EU, the US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Jacob Helberg, criticised the over-regulation of artificial intelligence in the EU, as well as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and its “ongoing issues”. This is “one of the biggest (...) obstacles to having a strong and vibrant economic transatlantic partnership”, said the official.
The European Commission believes that these talks should help to “clear up misunderstandings and promote cooperation” with the United States, while remaining firm. “However, we have always made it clear that our legislation is non-negotiable. This remains absolutely unchanged”, said a spokesperson for the institution.
Washington lambasts European “defeatism”. Mr Helberg criticised a certain “indifference” and defeatism on the part of the EU when it comes to the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, which is driving economic growth. In his view, the EU27 are wallowing in sluggish growth, unable to make the shift called for by Mario Draghi in his report on European competitiveness.
The US official, who held talks with the European Commission on 1 April and will be travelling to the Netherlands on 2 April to meet the directors of the powerful semiconductor manufacturer ASML, once again criticised European over-regulation, particularly of AI.
“That is very concerning because we believe AI is one of the most transformative economic revolutions since the Industrial Revolution and the AI Act’s stifling effect on AI development in Europe means that Europe is on the precipice of missing this revolution, which could really have significant reverberations at a macroeconomic level on the way that Europe ranks among the world’s nations internationally”, he insisted.
In particular, Jacob Helberg felt that the EU is behaving “as though 0% growth in a world growing at 3% is simply a normal part of the European condition now and something that should be managed rather than fought. That indifference we really see as a soft defeatism of perpetual fully lower expectations and that is the thing that really worries me the most. Not the stagnation itself, painful as that is, but the accommodation to it”. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre and Solenn Paulic)