25.02.2026

The View from Brussels #08-2026

News, Publications and Consultations from the Past Week

News CW 08 (16-22.02.2026)

AI: The European Commission (AI Office) is inviting stakeholders from Europe’s AI ecosystem to participate in an Expert Forum on “Frontier AI”. The forum is part of the European Frontier AI Initiative and aims to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness, sovereignty and security in trustworthy cutting-edge AI. It will primarily involve AI developers, investors and industrial actors, and other frontier AI experts. The focus will be on taking stock of ongoing activities, identifying obstacles and opportunities, and exchanging ideas.

DSA: Two years after the launch of the Digital Services Act, user rights have been noticeably strengthened. Following appeals, platforms have reversed almost 50 million moderation decisions, with a total of 30% of 165 million content moderation decisions being reviewed. It is striking that in 2025, around 99% of interventions were carried out to enforce the platforms’ own rules and not because of illegal content. Out-of-court settlement bodies are also effective. In 52% of the closed cases, decisions were overturned and content or accounts were restored.

EU Cyber Census: The EU Cyber Census 2025 shows how far EU countries have progressed in building joint cyber defences. The report is largely classified. Only a summary has been published. It contains planned measures, investments and cooperation (including with the military) as well as aggregated progress figures.

AI Impact Summit New Delhi: At the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, the EU supports a Leaders’ Declaration emphasising that AI can only realise its potential if its benefits are shared by all. Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen reaffirms the AI partnership with India and global AI governance. In India, she launched the European Legal Gateway Office to connect European companies with India’s ICT talent base, as well as the Frontier AI Grand Challenge for sovereign, large-scale European AI models. The Commission also launched two calls for expression of interest: a network of AI-powered screening centres in the healthcare sector and an expert forum on frontier AI.

Selected Publications from the EP Think Tanks

Ongoing Relevant European Commission Consultations

Selections of the Current Week, CW 09 (23.02-01.03.2026)

Council:

The current preview of the Council’s work for the upcoming days until 08.03.2026 can be found here.

Summit and Ministerial Meetings:

Preparatory Bodies:

 

An overview of the various Council dates can be found here.

Commission:

The agenda of the current Commission meeting was not available at our time of writing. You can potentially find it on the Commission’s website in the near future.

Parliament:

Plenary Sittings (BXL)

The agenda for the current plenary sittings week can be found here.

Here you can find a list of the upcoming dates of the European Parliament. The calendar of the plenary sittings for 2026 is available here (PDF).

Committees

LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties)

The agenda for the current meeting of the LIBE Committee taking place on 25.02.2026 can be found here. From the perspective of the Internet industry, the following agenda item is relevant:

  • Amending Directives 2014/65/EU and (EU) 2022/2557 as regards the extension of certain mitigating measures available for small and medium sized enterprises to small mid-cap enterprises and further simplifying measures

The current timetables of the LIBE Committee can be found here.

 

JURI Committee (Legal Affairs)

The agenda for the current meeting of the JURI Committee taking place on 23.02.2026 can be found here. The agenda for the meeting of the JURI Committee taking place on 24.02.2026 can be found here. From the perspective of the Internet industry, the following agenda items are relevant:

  • Amending Regulations (EU) 2024/1689 and (EU) 2018/1139 as regards the simplification of the implementation of harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Digital Omnibus on AI)
  • Establishment of European Business Wallets

The current timetables of the JURI Committee (as of 29.01.2026) can be found here.

ITRE Committee (Industry)

The agenda for the current meeting of the ITRE Committee taking place on 25.02.2026 and 26.02.2026 can be found here. From the perspective of the Internet industry, the following agenda items are relevant:

 

  • Upcoming European Research Area (ERA) Act
  • Presentation of the study “European Software and Cyber Dependencies”

The current timetables of the ITRE Committee can be found here.

 

IMCO Committee (Internal Market)

The agenda for the current meeting of the IMCO Committee taking place on 25.02.2026 can be found here. The agenda does not contain any items that are relevant from the perspective of the Internet industry.

The current timetables of the IMCO Committee (as of 27.01.2026) can be found here.

CULT Committee (Culture and Education)

The agenda for the current meeting of the CULT Committee taking place on 24.02.2026 can be found here. The agenda does not contain any items that are relevant from the perspective of the Internet industry.

The current timetables of the CULT Committee can be found here.

 

Outlook:

An overview of the following session weeks can be found here. The provisional agenda for the upcoming plenary sittings can be found here and here.

European Court of Justice

You can find the judicial calendar of the CJEU here.

The View from Brussels
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