Eurobloat #0166 • February 2024
February brought tractors to the Brussels ring road, fifty billion euros to Kyiv, and a brand new rulebook for any machine clever enough to finish a sentence. The Commission spent the month inventing burdens with one hand and triumphantly removing them with the other, which is a way of staying busy.
Folly of the Month: The world's first AI rulebook clears its last hurdle, on schedule for the elections
On 2 February the deputy ambassadors of all twenty-seven member states gathered in COREPER and unanimously waved through the final text of the Artificial Intelligence Act. France, Germany, Austria and Italy had grumbled for weeks that Europe was about to regulate an industry it does not actually have, then folded so completely that the vote was unanimous. The bloc that produces no serious AI champion of its own has nonetheless written the planet's first law telling everyone else how to build one, conveniently in time to be hung on the wall before the June elections. Nothing says technological leadership quite like leading the world in paperwork about technology.
1. Fifty billion euros for Ukraine, and Orban is quietly satisfied off the record
On 1 February the leaders sealed a fifty billion euro Ukraine Facility, thirty-three billion in loans and seventeen in grants, after Hungary dropped the veto it had brandished in December. The conditions that bought Viktor Orban's signature were not disclosed, because the EU that lectures member states about transparency prefers to settle its family quarrels in the corridor.
2. The pesticide law is withdrawn, the first Green Deal casualty arrives by tractor
On 6 February Ursula von der Leyen announced she was withdrawing the Sustainable Use Regulation, the plan to halve pesticide use by 2030, after weeks of farmers blockading capitals. It is a fine thing that the burden is gone. It is a less fine thing that it took convoys of tractors to remind the Commission that food is grown by people, not by directives, and nobody in Brussels will be billed for the wasted years.
3. The Digital Services Act now governs every platform in Europe
From 17 February the Digital Services Act stopped applying only to the giants and started applying to almost every online service offering anything to anyone in the EU. The Commission and its new battalion of national Digital Services Coordinators now sit in judgement over what you may read, post and see, which is reassuring if you have ever wished a committee curated your timeline.
→ digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu
4. Brussels opens a formal case against a video app
On 19 February the Commission opened formal proceedings against TikTok under the Digital Services Act, citing the protection of minors, advertising transparency, researcher data access and the menace of addictive design. Having decided that a dancing app is a threat to the continent, the Commission will now spend years and lawyers proving it, which is exactly the sort of grand strategic priority one expects from a superpower.
5. The corporate due diligence directive collapses in the Council
On 28 February the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive failed to clear the Council, as Germany abstained, a dozen states followed and Sweden voted against, denying the qualified majority. A flagship agreed in December suddenly could not command the numbers, which is what happens when you ask companies to police their entire supply chain on pain of liability. A rare outbreak of member states saying no, and very welcome it was.
→ kpmg.com
6. The Nature Restoration Law passes while the tractors are still outside
On 27 February Parliament adopted the Nature Restoration Law by 329 votes to 275, ordering member states to restore twenty per cent of the EU's land and sea by 2030. It passed even though the largest group, the EPP, had turned against it over the red tape it heaps on farmers, and even though those same farmers were rioting outside the building that day. Brussels does so love to legislate over the noise of the people it is legislating about.
7. A right to repair, served on a single European platform
On 2 February the Council and Parliament struck a deal on the Right to Repair Directive, complete with a European repair information form and, naturally, a single repair platform designed and operated at European level rather than twenty-seven national ones. Helping people fix a washing machine is sensible. Insisting the fixing be coordinated from Brussels is the reflex of an institution that cannot see a problem without nationalising it upwards.
8. The gig economy gets a directive that presumes you are employed
On 8 February the Council and Parliament agreed the Platform Work Directive, which presumes a courier or driver is an employee and dares the platform to prove otherwise, while also setting Brussels up to police the algorithms that manage them. The deal had already collapsed twice, which tells you how keen several capitals were to have Europe reclassify their workforce for them.
9. A new European AI Office quietly comes to life
On 21 February the Commission decision establishing the European Artificial Intelligence Office entered into force, lodging a fresh EU-level regulator inside DG CONNECT to supervise the rules nobody has finished writing. Europe has no flagship AI model, but it now has the office that will grade everyone else's homework, and the office came first.
→ digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu
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