“This Is Not a Foreign Agents Law”
On Tuesday, 12 December 2023, the Commission adopted its long-awaited Defence of Democracy package, which includes a Proposal for a Directive on Transparency of Interest Representation on behalf of Third Countries. Dubravka Šuica, Commissioner for Democracy and Demography seemed eager to clarify what the Directive is not. Šuica emphasised that the Directive “is not a foreign agents law”. But the more a statement is repeated, the less credible it appears. Rather, the opposite appears to be true. And so, the devil is not in the name, it lies in enforcement. Despite the Commission’s assertion that full harmonisation of the Directive prevents Member States from gold-plating or potentially worse activities, the Commission has limited control over how Member States apply and enforce their national laws. This is the biggest risk of the proposal.
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BigTech’s Efforts to Derail the AI Act
Big Tech is trying to water down the AI Act, which is supposed to be finalized before the end of this year. This is yet another chapter in the private sector's influence on governments to turn AI regulation into a toothless self-regulatory framework. The narratives that lobbying power is trying to install follow a well-known pattern. This blog post goes into detail and explains what's at stake.
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