08/10/2026
The debate over whether and to what extent Europe must embrace AI is heavily skewed towards fast, uncritical adoption, as Mario Draghi’s latest op-ed in the Financial Times shows. Yet, in his letter to the Financial Times, Prof. Alberto Alemanno challenges the growing “AI accelerationist” consensus and asks Europe to look beyond productivity and competitiveness to questions of power, distribution and democratic control. As Prof. Alemanno argues in his response to Draghi, faster AI adoption is not, per se, a strategy for shared prosperity if its gains are concentrated while its costs fall on workers and communities. The more important questions are: who benefits, who bears the costs, and whose interests shape the rules?
As we are now seeing in the US, the push for faster AI adoption also intersects with the influence of the very companies that stand to benefit from weaker rules. Europe should therefore not simply frame the debate around how quickly it can adopt AI, attract investment and reduce regulation. Speed is not an economic strategy in itself.
The warning becomes reality
A recent report by The Brussels Times provides a striking example. Three months into Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the EU, questions are mounting over whether it can act as an impartial “honest broker” on digital policy. Ireland is home to the European operations of many of the world’s largest technology companies, while its Data Protection Commission is responsible for enforcing EU privacy law against many of them. The concerns have become particularly acute following a leaked Irish presidency compromise on the EU’s Digital Omnibus. According to the report, the draft would allow companies to use personal data to train and operate AI systems on the basis of “legitimate interest”, potentially without obtaining people’s consent. The proposal would reintroduce an AI-related provision that Member States had previously removed from the text and, according to critics, could go further than the European Commission’s original proposal. This comes against a backdrop of growing concern about the influence of Big Tech over Europe’s digital rulebook. At the beginning of this year, we highlighted research showing how several proposed changes closely reflected long-standing demands from major technology companies and their lobby groups. We also joined more than 20 civil society organisations in an open letter to EU Member States, urging governments to ensure that simplification does not come at the expense of fundamental rights. At the same time, The Brussels Times reports that Google hosted a reception in Brussels to mark Ireland’s Council presidency, while protesters gathered nearby to challenge Big Tech’s influence. Critics also point to extensive contacts between major technology companies and Irish policymakers during the negotiations. The Irish Presidency rejects the suggestion that it is acting otherwise than impartially, stressing that its role is to facilitate agreement among Member States while protecting fundamental rights.
Who writes the rules matters
The issue is not whether Ireland is acting in good faith. It is whether the institutional circumstances create a credible risk that private interests can exert disproportionate influence over public decision-making. What is happening in Ireland reflects a broader European dilemma. As governments embrace an AI acceleration agenda, the pressure to deregulate is growing at the same time as corporate power is becoming increasingly concentrated. These two trends cannot be considered separately. Our recent analysis made a related point: the debate should not be reduced to a choice between “regulation” and “innovation”. We need to ask who can comply with the rules, who can understand them, who benefits from them – and who gets left out. The leaked proposal is more than a dispute about one provision of the Digital Omnibus. It is a reminder that who writes the rules matters as much as what those rules say. Europe shouldn’t accelerate AI at the expense of accountability, privacy, workers or citizens.