The View from Brussels #316

News, Publications and Consultations from the Past Week

News CW 38 (16.09.2024-22.09.2024)

Breton’s resignation: Thierry Breton, the French European Commissioner for the Internal Market of the EU, unexpectedly resigned from his position on 16 September 2024. His resignation came after a series of tensions between him and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Breton accused von der Leyen of actively excluding him from her future European Commission team and calling on France to withdraw his name. In a sharp letter, he also accused her of questionable leadership. (Politico.eu)

New European Commission: The European Commission President presented the new structure of the College of Commissioners to the European Parliament, based on six priorities: technological sovereignty, security, decarbonisation, industrial policy, European cohesion and social support. (EU COM)

EU Commission wants to strengthen technology policy: The new European Commission is planning around 30 new legal acts and initiatives to strengthen technology policy. These will be spread across seven different commissioners, which could lead to concerns regarding coherence. Henna Virkkunen will take responsibility for technological sovereignty, digital networks and AI development. Other priorities include competition rules, start-up promotion and defence strategy. Critical issues such as disinformation and consumer protection will also be addressed. (Euractiv.com)

Study on AI liability directive: A recent study by the European Parliament Research Service (EPRS) recommends that liability regulation for products with artificial intelligence (AI) be extended to general AI applications. It also recommends creating a broader legal instrument for software liability. (Euractiv.com)

Selected Publications from the EP Think Tank:

Proposal for a directive on adapting non-contractual civil liability rules to artificial intelligence: Complementary impact assessment

Ongoing Relevant European Commission Consultations

Digital Europe programme – interim evaluation (until 20.09.2024)
Protection of minors – guidelines (until 30.09.2024)
EU cybersecurity certification scheme – amendment to the list of state-of-the-art documents (until 18.10.2024)
EU Cybersecurity Act – rules for notifications of conformity assessment bodies (until 18.10.2024)

Selections of the CW 39 (23.09.2024 – 29.09.2024)

Council:

The current preview of the Council’s work for the upcoming days until 29.09.2024 can be found here.

Summit and Ministerial Meetings:

General Affairs Council, 09.2024
Competitiveness Council (Internal market and industry), 09.2024, Agenda

Preparatory Bodies:

Horizontal Working Party on Cyber Issues, 23 September 2024
Working Party on Intellectual Property, 23 September 2024
Audiovisual Working Party, 23 September 2024
Working Party on Intellectual Property, 24 September 2024
Working Party on Transport – Intermodal Questions and Networks, 24 September 2024
Working Party on Telecommunications and Information Society, 24 September 2024
Coreper II, 25 September 2024
Coreper I, 25 September 2024
Horizontal Working Party on Cyber Issues, 25 September 2024
Working Party on General Affairs, 25 September 2024
Horizontal Working Party on Cyber Issues, 26 September 2024

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.