EU Tech Commissioner defends scrapping of AI Liability rules
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The AI Liability Directive would not have led to one set of uniform rules across the EU, Henna Virkkunen, the EU Commissioner responsible for tech, told members of the European Parliament's Legal Affairs committee (JURI) on Wednesday.
'With a directive, member states implement the rules in different ways,' Virkkunen said. 'I favour more regulations to make sure we have one single market,' she added, referring to the legal instrument that is equally binding across all member states.
The committee members had
ask
ed
the Commission why it withdrew the AI Liability Directive after the EU executive said it saw 'no foreseeable agreement' on the proposal in its 2025 work program published in February.
The rules were intended to offer consumers a harmonised means of redress when they experience harm arising from AI products or services. They were proposed in 2022 but no significant progress has been made since.
'We need to fully implement the AI Act before we propose new rules – in the last years the European Commission has proposed a lot of digital rules and we need to simplify them before presenting something new,' Virkkunen said.
Related
EU Commission presents plans to boost AI uptake, protect critical sectors
EU Commission to launch consultation on grand AI strategy
Lawmakers have been divided over the need for the rules. The rapporteur in JURI Axel Voss (Germany/EPP), wants to keep working on the dossier. His counterpart in the Internal Market and Consumer Protection committee (IMCO), Kosma Złotowski (Poland/ECR), said in his draft opinion
published
in January that the 'adoption of an AI Liability Directive at this stage is premature and unnecessary.'
Voss said in the JURI hearing on Wednesday that simplification is a trend 'but liability rules are needed anyway to create a true digital single market'.
Sergey Lagodinsky (Germany/Greens) said he was 'very puzzled' about the reasons for withdrawal and said that co-legislators needed to be consulted. On the other hand, both Diego Solier (Spain/ECR) and Svenja Hahn (Germany/Renew) – members of the IMCO committee -- spoke out in favour of the Commission decision.
Hahn said that the existing product liability laws and national tort laws are enough and that consumers have enough opportunities to file claims.
In a
letter
to Virkkunen sent earlier this week, civil society and consumer groups called upon the Commission to work on new AI liability rules to fill 'legal gaps'.
The Commission has until August to make a final decision on the matter.
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Euronews
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So they were focusing on asymmetric warfare long before we did, because they were worried about America's intervention in the region,' he added. However, the difference between the war in Ukraine and Taiwan and China's tensions is that Taiwan is separated by sea, so China would have to conduct an 'amphibious attack'. "If they do so, I believe we will acquire the abilities and the quantity of the drones - UAV, UUV, and all kinds of asymmetric warfare equipment - to counter these kinds of aggressions". One of Taiwan's challenges is building enough drones to counter China, Kuan-ting said. "We are trying to reverse the situation, that they [China] have the quantity we don't. That's why in the past two, three years, the Ministry of Defence, and also most of the leadership of Taiwan, decided to try to include more public companies". "Instead of conventional equipment like big tanks, big aeroplanes, they probably couldn't adapt to modern warfare. We decided to buy smart and use a smart weapon system," he said. Taiwan has set itself the goal of manufacturing 15,000 domestically made drones a month by 2028. It is a tall order, but Taiwan is a strong manufacturing country known for its quality. However, Taiwan-made drones cost on average 25 per cent more to make than Chinese drones. Scaling Taiwan's defence tech companies is therefore paramount, and working with Europe and the US to expand the markets will be key, the legislator said. At Taiwan's biggest tech fair COMPUTEX in May, one Taiwanese defence company is using artificial intelligence (AI) to vastly improve thermal cameras that see in the dark and clarify the noise in its audio equipment. The company, Thunder Fortis, says its technology can detect enemies from 300 m away in the dark. "Our advantage is also our challenge. So we want to produce internally, but our cost will be very high if we don't rely on exports from other countries," sales manager Nancy Lin told Euronews Next. "Our challenge will be to try to sell to the market, but still keep a low cost. But we are very confident in manufacturing good quality products that not only serve the military market," she added. The company is so far partnering with tech giants such as Nvidia and Arm. "Everyone is aware that Taiwan is in a strategic position in the Taiwan Strait, and we have our allies from Japan, South Korea, and also from other countries," she said. "We don't want to make other countries an enemy, it's a bit sensitive, but we want to make ourselves strong enough so no one will try to violate our boundaries of our countries. "Especially many of our components are made in Taiwan, assembled in Taiwan manufactured in Taiwan so we can rely on our self-produced products and we don't need to rely on imports from other countries," she said. But to deter China, it is not just about building the best defence tech, it is also necessary to use cheap methods to eliminate military targets such as drones. "It's not just about drones to drones, it's about how to apply the best systems, the best equipment to make sure they cannot close the Taiwan Strait," Kuan-ting said. "I believe if there is any country that can stop China, Taiwan might be one of them, but it has to be collective actions with our partners. So we can't do this alone," the legislator added. Trump's America First trade policy has sent shockwaves around the world and raised questions over international relations. Despite this, Kuan-ting believes that Taiwan's ties to the US are still just as strong as before Trump's reelection. "I believe the Congress and the Senate of the United States are sending very firm and clear signals to Taiwan and China that the United States is staying with us and they are providing us more military equipment," he said. There has been speculation of Europe's rapprochement with China due to Trump's tariffs. However, the legislator believes that the bloc's connection with Taiwan is still close. "Most of our friends in Europe are aware of the situation and are also aware of how the Chinese government is trying to dump their EVs (electric vehicles) onto Europe, so we have pretty much the same common ground. They're facing economical [threats], we are facing both economic and militarised threats," he said. Marcin Jerzewski, head of the Taiwan Office of the European Values Center for Security Policy, said that "it's too early to say that Europe is distancing itself from Taiwan" and that he has "high hopes" related to the upcoming EU-China summit that will happen in Beijing. However, he said that this does not mean that Europe will move away from Taiwan. "I believe that a lot of signs of goodwill and openness that are coming out of the current European Commission towards China are also a signal to the United States that the EU is willing to continue down the path of strategic autonomy". He said that Europeans still has a tendency to look at Taiwan as only a difficult subset of overall relations with China, rather than trying to look at Taiwan as a partner in its own right. But he said there is a small shift in Europe looking at Taiwan as a partner on its own. "It doesn't mean that we're recognising Taiwan as an independent country or abandoning one-China policy, but it's about identifying spaces for engagement that are not just sub-engagements under this broader umbrella of dealings with China," he said. Jerzewski also said that Chinese information operations are playing a big role in stoking division in Taiwan. He said that this has two objectives. The first is sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism. "Definitely in the current climate, with unpredictability reigned in by Trump 2.0, China has been gifted many narratives on a silver platter because there is no longer a need for them to produce this information. They can just amplify the actual headlines that are coming out of DC," he said. The second objective has always been to undermine democratic processes, trust, and the public trust in democratic processes and institutions, he added. However, Taiwan is also using technology to boost its own foreign policy standing. During the a recent speech by the Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te, he highlighted a need to turn Taiwan into an "AI island" and use its advantage of semiconductors to be ahead of the curve and embed Taiwan very firmly in those AI supply chains, so that giving up on Taiwan is more difficult for countries around the world. Taiwan also, in its National Security Act, included specific provisions for protecting its talent and technology. "I think that this legal change is a very conspicuous manifestation of this realisation about the simultaneous pursuit of both technological advancement and beefing up its security strategies," Jerzewski said. Securing Taiwan and Ukraine is key to global security, the legislator said, urging Europe to continue its support for Taiwan and Ukraine. "It serves both national interests and values as well. If you want to stay, if you want to live the way you want, freely, then we must stop them. "Because they are trying to undermine everything we are standing for, the way we live. We should not let that happen, because if it happened in Ukraine, it could happen to Poland. "If it happened to Taiwan, it could happen to other neighbours. So we have to stop the domino here," he said.
Euronews
an hour ago
- Euronews
EU unveils Ocean Pact ahead of UN conference in France
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Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans, Costas Kadis, added that it wasn't just a 'message in a bottle' but a concrete plan for action. "It also offers immense potential for more investments in a sustainable blue economy, and it is key for our security," he added. Headline pledges include proposing a new European law on the oceans by 2027 and revising two maritime directives to better protect biodiversity. But environmental NGOs aren't so sure. While the pact shows 'tentative steps' in the right direction, they say there are 'critical gaps' which must be addressed. They consider it a missed opportunity for the EU to show leadership at the UNOC, where it will present the Pact next week. In a joint statement, a group of six leading environmental NGOs said the Pact falls short of delivering the urgent action and binding targets that are needed to protect oceans. BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, Oceana, Seas At Risk, Surfrider Foundation Europe, and the WWF European Policy Office welcomed the announcement but warned that to be successful, it must lead to the immediate implementation of existing obligations and include legally binding targets. Vera Coelho, deputy vice-president of Oceana in Europe, said it was a 'missed opportunity' for the EU to show leadership at the upcoming UNOC. 'It proposes to continue the same failed, case-by-case approach that has enabled destructive practices like bottom trawling to continue for decades inside the EU's so-called 'protected' areas,' Coelho explains. 'It opens the door to revising key pieces of EU law, such as the Common Fisheries Policy, rather than proposing an implementation and enforcement strategy to address the real root of the ocean's multiple crises: lack of political will by member states to meet agreed targets and implement EU law. 'By deferring real action, this lacklustre Pact puts at risk the future of Europe's seas and of the people who rely on them.' The NGOs are urging EU institutions and member states to strengthen the pact with concrete measures and ensure that ocean protection becomes central to ocean-related EU laws. 'While the Commission promises in the Ocean Pact to work on enforcement, it falls short, offering no concrete plan for how ocean laws, which exist on paper, will actually be implemented at sea,' adds Juliet Stote, law and policy advisor on marine ecosystems at ClientEarth. 'Currently, EU laws are continuously breached - with destructive activities such as bottom trawling routinely taking place in Marine Protected Areas, and overfishing continuing in EU waters - this must stop.' Paris's Seine could be the next river granted legal personhood under plans announced by Mayor Anne Hidalgo yesterday. Paris City Council has called on Parliament to pass a law giving the River Seine rights, so that "an independent guardian authority' can defend it in court, according to yesterday's resolution. It follows a swell of similar 'rights for nature' breakthroughs since New Zealand first recognised the Whanganui River as a living entity in 2017. And is another step forward in Paris's bid to protect the Seine from pollution. 'From the reclamation of the banks in 2016 to the historic swimming in the Seine during the Paris Games, to the improvement of water quality, we have never stopped acting to restore our river to its rightful place!' Hidalgo wrote in a LinkedIn post yesterday. The foundations of the plan were laid by a citizens' convention on the future of the Seine, which concluded last month. 50 citizens chosen at random questioned experts and took part in weeks of debate in order to reach a collective opinion. They concluded that the Seine should have fundamental rights, including 'the right to exist, to flow and to regenerate.' On the basis of this opinion, the City of Paris is tabling a bill in Parliament to give the Seine the rights to be properly protected. Une publication partagée par Anne Hidalgo (@annehidalgo) 'Recognising rights to the oceans, rivers or the Seine is neither a symbolic gesture nor a legal fantasy: it is a political response to the ecological emergency. It is urgent to act!' Hidalgo added. The Seine must be considered an ecosystem that "no one can claim ownership of", where the preservation of life takes "precedence over everything", according to the convention. Paris has been on a major cleanup mission on the Seine's behalf in recent years, spending €1.4 billion on its recovery. That includes investments like building a giant underground tub to store wastewater so that it doesn't run into the river. It received a boost in the run-up to the Olympics last year, as French authorities sought to get the river clean enough to host water sports events. After much speculation, failed E. coli tests, and one Mayoral swim, some Olympic events were able to go ahead. But a plan to open the Seine for public swimming last summer was delayed until this year. Now, authorities say it will be opened up at three points from 5 July. Despite ongoing issues from pollution, rising water temperatures, and pesticide runoff, the Seine has been getting markedly healthier. As the citizens' convention noted, the river is now home to around 40 species of fish - up from just four in 1970. Opening the river up to the public this summer could present "additional risks", it warned, and so will need to be carefully managed. Communities around the world have campaigned for fragile ecosystems like rivers and mountains to be afforded legal rights in order to better protect them. The legislation protecting the Whanganui River combines Western legal precedent with Indigenous beliefs, as Maori people have long considered it a living entity. In 2022, Spain granted personhood status to Europe's biggest saltwater lagoon, the Mar Menor, marking the first time a European ecosystem gained the right to the conservation of its species and habitats, and protection from harmful activities such as intensive agriculture. Last year, an Ecuadorian court ruled that pollution had violated the rights of the Machángara River, which runs through Quito. It enforced an article of Ecuador's Constitution that recognises the rights of nature. Hidalgo wants to see the Seine join this privileged company. 'Paris is committed to putting the Seine back in its rightful place, in the heart of our city and as close as possible to its inhabitants,' she wrote. 'A new adventure begins!'
