Is Brussels really pivoting from hyper‑regulation to tech‑friendly growth?

The EU has issued more tech rules than any other jurisdiction – way more. Can you even name them all? We have GDPR, DSA, DMA, DORA, NIS 2, AI Act, DGA, e-Privacy, etc. Plus national rules on top.

Regulation fatigue is peaking

Criticism against this regulation inflation has long existed, but reached a new peak this year, during February’s AI summit in Paris, where Emmanuel Macron called for rules more innovation-friendly (France had before opposed the last strengthening of the AI Act in the last stage of the negotiation), and the U.S. government through JD Vance, at the same summit. Calls that were echoed in the business world. Around the same time, MEP Axel Voss was pushing for updating GDPR and make it lighter for SMEs in particular.

From Rule‑maker to Risk‑taker?

All those efforts seem to have paid off, and the EU is now actively pursuing the simplification of its legal environment for the tech sector – especially AI. At the end of Paris AI Summit, the EU announced dropping several projects for new rules, among them the long-discussed e-Privacy regulation and the AI liability directive. An updated version of the GDPR is said to be proposed next June. And the AI Continent Action Plan has just been released, with the goal of – again – simplifiying the rules, but also to supercharge its infrastructures with a 200 billions EUR that includes AI gigafactories and super-compute clusters.

Three things I’m closely watching

The change of intentions in the EU is clear: the regulating phase is over, the balance is shifting toward fostering innovation. The commitment to follow this corrective path is commendable. But will this really materialize? Here is what I’ll be monitoring:

– The upcoming proposal for a light GDPR

– The implementation of the “AI Act Service Desk” supposed to ease the application of the AI Act

– The concretization of these gigafactories projects

AI & Data Privacy Compliance
emmanuel-pernot-leplay

In this blog you'll find my articles about AI and privacy regulations from the EU, the US and China.

Interested in Digital Geopolitcs?
Subscribe to my Newsletter: