Europe pressurized to suspend AI act from CEOs of major firms

Chief executives from Airbus, BNP Paribas and other leading European firms have asked Brussels to put its new artificial intelligence law on hold, saying it could undermine the bloc’s ability to keep pace with the United States and China.

According to Financial Times, CEOs of major companies asked the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen to delay the AI Act for two years. They warned that overlapping, unclear rules could discourage investment and slow down AI development across Europe.

The letter argued that the European complex rulebook “puts Europe’s AI ambitions at risk, as it jeopardizes not only the development of European champions, but also the ability of all industries to deploy AI at the scale required by global competition.”

Among those who added their signatures were the chief executives of Carrefour, a French retailer and Dutch health‐tech group Philips.

The US government, big tech firms, and European business groups have all stepped up pressure on the law. This week, Brussels hosted senior representatives from major US technology firms on Wednesday, July 2, to review a revised, softer draft of the legislation.

Central to the discussions is a “code of practice” designed to guide firms on ways of complying with the Act when deploying AI models including Llama from Meta, OpenAI’s GPT-4, and Meta’s Llama. Originally scheduled for publication in May, the code has been postponed and is expected in watered-down form.

EU technology commissioner Henna Virkkunen said on Monday that the guidance would appear before the Act formally takes effect in August. “We will publish the code of practice before that to support our industry and SMEs to comply with our AI Act,” she said.

Behind closed doors, officials at the EU Commission and in member states have discussed ways to simplify the law’s staggered timeline.

Although the AI Act came into full affect in August 2024, several key measures do not kick in until later this year or beyond. Patrick Van Eecke, co-chair of law firm Cooley’s global cyber, data and privacy practice, called it “a classic example of regulitis that doesn’t take into account the most important thing for industry, which is legal certainty.”

EU AI Champions urge commitment to simpler, competitive rules

The letter was organized by the European AI Champions Initiative, a coalition of 110 companies across various sectors. It said a two-year pause would send “innovators and investors around the world a strong signal that Europe is serious about its simplification and competitiveness agenda.”

Start-up founders and their investors have voiced similar concerns.

In a separate letter this week, over 30 start-ups chiefs in the EU warned that the legislation was “a rushed ticking time bomb.” They fear that unclear rules on general-purpose models could lead to a patchwork of national regulations, giving well-funded US tech giants an edge over smaller local firms.

Many established businesses share the worry that any company using LLMs in its own systems would face the same regulations as the biggest tech groups, especially in sensitive areas including liability of copyrights. Some say the lack of clarity on how member states will apply the rules may deter firms from rolling out AI tools, causing them losses against rivals in North America and Asia.

The EU Commission stressed that it remains “fully committed to the main goals of the AI Act, which include establishing harmonized risk-based rules across the EU and ensuring the safety of AI systems on the European market.”

It added that it is simplifying its digital rulebook broadly, so that it can consider all options in the current state.

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