EU and Parliament Fail to Agree on AI Act Changes After 12 Hours of Talks, Pushing Deal to Next Month
April 29, 2026 - 7:11 am
The collapse of Tuesday’s trilogue exposes deep divisions over whether high-risk AI systems embedded in consumer products should be exempt from the world’s strictest AI rules. After 12 hours of negotiations, EU member states and European Parliament lawmakers failed to reach a deal on proposed changes to the bloc’s landmark AI Act. Talks will resume in May, according to Reuters.
"It was not possible to reach an agreement with the European Parliament," stated a Cypriot official, Cyprus currently holding the rotating EU Council presidency.
The failed session was the final scheduled political trilogue on the AI Omnibus, a package of amendments to the AI Act that entered into force in August 2024, as well as proposed changes to the GDPR, the e-Privacy Directive, and the Data Act. The Omnibus is framed as a competitiveness measure, aimed at reducing regulatory burdens on businesses to help European companies keep pace with US and Asian rivals. Its critics, who include a large coalition of privacy and civil rights organisations, argue it is a rollback of hard-won protections dressed up as simplification.
The core unresolved question on Tuesday was whether high-risk AI systems embedded in products already regulated under EU product safety legislation—medical devices, toys, connected cars, industrial machinery—should be exempt from the AI Act’s additional requirements. The European Parliament, backed by industry groups, has been pushing for these systems to be covered by their existing sectoral rules only. The Council, representing member states, has shown limited enthusiasm for such a broad carve-out.
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The Omnibus has come under sustained criticism from researchers and civil society organisations who argue that weakening the AI Act before its core provisions have even come into force risks dismantling one of Europe’s most distinctive regulatory assets. Michael McNamara, the Parliament’s lead negotiator on the AI Omnibus, acknowledged in an interview with Tech Policy Press that overlapping rules can be difficult to manage, but warned that shifting AI governance into sectoral laws could ultimately be "deregulatory rather than simplifying."
Civil society groups have been more direct. Over 40 organisations signed a letter to the Parliament in mid-April arguing that the proposed changes weaken the AI Act’s fundamental rights protections, particularly for biometric identification systems, AI used in schools, and medical AI.
The AI Act was widely seen as a global standard-setter when it entered into force. The urgency behind the negotiations is structural. The AI Act’s core obligations for high-risk AI systems are currently set to apply from August 2, 2026, just three months away. The entire purpose of the AI Omnibus is to postpone that deadline to December 2, 2027, for stand-alone high-risk systems, and to August 2028 for integrated AI in products and services.