Europe Is Bending the Knee to the US on Tech Policy (www.wired.com)

European tech rulemaking has gone into a de facto pause as industry and U.S. government pressure push Brussels to reconsider or water down major initiatives. The EU’s flagship AI Act (in force since August 2024) faces a likely review in late‑2026 under a “digital omnibus” that could postpone enforcement penalties from August 2026 to August 2027; the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act are under heavy legal and lobbying fire; the Digital Networks Act has been delayed until at least January 2026 amid disputes over copper network phase‑outs and strengthening BEREC; and the draft EU Space Act drew a blunt U.S. rebuke for allegedly breaching a recent U.S.–EU tariff framework. Parallel fights include U.S. lobbying around spectrum policy (upper 6 GHz band) and aggressive pushback from Apple, Google and other American firms against DMA/DSA provisions. For the AI/ML community this creates acute uncertainty: timelines for compliance, auditing, transparency, high‑risk classification and penalties are fluid, while standards and certification processes may lag or be weakened. That means product roadmaps, data‑handling practices, model documentation (e.g., risk assessments, logging), and market strategies must remain flexible across jurisdictions. The net effect could be slower harmonization of safety and accountability norms in Europe, more fragmented rules, and extended windows where regulatory requirements are unclear—raising compliance risk for deployers and complicating efforts to build interoperable, safety‑conscious AI systems.