MEPs celebrating with cava as the negotiation is completed. Picture by Dan Nechita.

Agreement Reached On the EU AI Act

European Legislation on Artificial Intelligence will face a significant shift with the introduction of this landmark agreement

Alex Moltzau
3 min readDec 9, 2023

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This article is about the announcement that a deal has been made on the EU AI Act. It will be updated as further news is received. The first AI office will start working from tomorrow.

“I am very pleased to be here with you today and with such good news, I will thank you all for waiting for us […] There is a deal.” — Carme Artigas

Screenshot from the press conference early morning on the 9th of December 2023

The press release happened here: https://video.consilium.europa.eu/event/en/27283

“The deal reached in Brussels took three days of negotiations, including an initial 22-hour session that began Wednesday afternoon and dragged into Thursday.” — New York Times

What will it mean?

  • Safeguards agreed on general purpose artificial intelligence
  • Limitation for the of use biometric identification systems by law enforcement
  • Bans on social scoring and AI used to manipulate or exploit user vulnerabilities
  • Right of consumers to launch complaints and receive meaningful explanations
  • Fines ranging from 35 million euro or 7% of global turnover to 7.5 million or 1.5% of turnover

As shared from the official article:

There will be national AI supervisory authorities. An EU AI Office will also be established.

  • Open source AI will be subject to very minimal regulatory requirements while AI used in the context of R&D will be exempt
  • Strong emphasis on the protection of fundamental rights.
  • Expanded list of prohibited AI systems may be forthcoming.
  • Leverage the OECD definition of AI systems.

When will it happen?

  • A grace period of between 6 to 24 months, depending on the requirements, will be implemented.

Adaption period only six months for prohibited use cases, and 12 months for general purpose AI.

They will work on anticipated voluntary compliance. One mechanism to this is the EU AI Pact.

MEPs are celebrating the deal

As shared by Dan Nechita.

MEPs celebrating with Cava

As posted by Luca Beruzzi from Euractiv.

What do you think about this development?

Feel free to share what you think in the comment section.

This is also part of my personal project #1000daysofAI and you are reading article 523. I am writing one new article about or related to artificial intelligence for 1000 days. The first 500 days I wrote an article every day, and now from 500 to 1000 I write at a different pace.

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Alex Moltzau
Alex Moltzau

Written by Alex Moltzau

Policy Officer at the European AI Office in the European Commission. This is a personal Blog and not the views of the European Commission.