Jurisdiction

EU

The EU regulates AI through directly applicable legislation, coordinated enforcement and sector-specific law.

Policy approach

Current structure

The AI Act uses risk categories and provider or deployer duties. The European Commission AI Office oversees general-purpose AI while national authorities enforce much of the wider regime.

Policy questions

Content integrity

Should AI-generated content be labelled?

Governments require disclosure in different forms. Technical duties, responsible actors and enforcement models still diverge.

Frontier safety

Should frontier models face mandatory evaluations?

Evaluation language is widespread in policy texts. Thresholds, evaluators and legal consequences remain contested.

Compute & energy

Should AI data centres face growth controls?

Electricity, water, local consent and national competitiveness are turning compute infrastructure into a policy fight.

Multilateral standards

Should intergovernmental AI principles guide national rules?

Soft-law instruments such as the OECD AI Recommendation supply shared definitions that many jurisdictions then incorporate, revise or ignore.

Ethics & rights

Should states implement UNESCO’s AI ethics recommendation?

UNESCO’s 2021 recommendation is a global ethics standard; the open policy question is how far states turn its principles into domestic duties.

Multilateral standards

Should states join binding AI human-rights treaties?

The Council of Europe Framework Convention is open for signature. The live dispute is ratification and domestic effect, not whether a treaty text exists.

Geopolitics & compute

Should advanced AI chips face export controls?

US export controls already treat advanced computing integrated circuits as regulated items. The dispute is scope, partners and effectiveness.

Institutional design

Should states prefer AI promotion statutes to horizontal bans?

Japan’s Act No. 53 of 2025 promotes AI development and directs guidelines. Whether that model outcompetes bans-heavy statutes remains contested.

Content integrity

Should watermarking standards be mandatory?

Open provenance standards such as C2PA already exist. The dispute is whether law should require them or leave adoption voluntary.

Institutional design

Should sector regulators own AI rules instead of a horizontal act?

The UK white paper and Singapore’s Model Framework both privilege existing regulators or voluntary tools over an early omnibus AI Act.

Policy asks

in-force

Require machine-readable marking of AI-generated or altered content

Require covered providers to attach detectable technical provenance markers to synthetic or materially altered content.

in-force

Require visible disclosure for deepfakes and public-interest synthetic media

Require people encountering covered synthetic media to receive a clear, visible disclosure rather than relying only on hidden metadata.

adopted

Offer a voluntary code of practice for general-purpose AI Act compliance

Provide a multi-stakeholder code that GPAI providers may use to demonstrate compliance with AI Act transparency, copyright and systemic-risk duties.

adopted

Adopt the OECD AI-system definition and trustworthy-AI principles

Use the OECD Recommendation’s AI-system definition and principles as a shared baseline for domestic policy and legislative drafting.

adopted

Implement UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

Translate the UNESCO ethics recommendation’s values, principles and policy action areas into national law, guidance or institutional practice.

proposed

Sign and ratify the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence

Express consent to be bound by CETS No. 225 so the Convention’s human-rights, democracy and rule-of-law duties apply to the Party.

Policy vehicles

regulation · Applicable

EU AI Act · Article 50 transparency obligations

Article 50 establishes transparency duties for specified AI interactions and synthetic or manipulated content.

guidance · Published

EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice

Voluntary multi-stakeholder code detailing AI Act duties for providers of general-purpose AI models.

Policy timeline

Events and deadlines

2025-07-10
EU GPAI Code of Practice published
The Commission announced receipt of the final General-Purpose AI Code of Practice.
2026-08-02
EU Article 50 transparency duties enter application
The EU’s Article 50 transparency duties became applicable as enforcement powers expanded.
2026-12-02
Limited Article 50 legacy-system grace period ends
The limited transition for machine-readable marking by certain systems placed on the market before August closes.