EU ministers responsible for telecommunications and information society discuss rules on artificial intelligence

State Secretary Claudia Dörr-Voß will be attending an informal meeting of the ministers of the EU Member States responsible for telecommunications and information society today. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the public meeting will take place as a video conference.

The focus of the virtual meeting will be the debate on the European Commission’s proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) and amending certain Union legislative acts, which is currently being negotiated at EU level.

The participants will discuss in particular basic principles of the Regulation and challenges related to its effective implementation. The key issues are to what extent there is a need for regulation in the field of artificial intelligence and whether the chosen horizontal regulatory approach takes account of this need and will result in specific improvements. In addition, it will be discussed whether the Regulation can be implemented efficiently and whether it strikes the right balance between the different objectives.

State Secretary Dörr-Voß said: "We welcome the European initiative on artificial intelligence. A balanced approach offers us the opportunity to take on a leading role. In this context, it is important that new rules are innovation-friendly, observe fundamental rights in an effective way and are easy to implement. This is particularly important for SMEs and start-ups, which account for the largest share of companies in the EU. We need to make sure that the rules work for them in practice so that we can strengthen Europe’s competitiveness."

On 21 April 2021, the European Commission had presented its proposal for a Regulation as part of an "AI package" to make Europe the global centre for high-quality and trustworthy artificial intelligence.

The risk-based regulatory approach is to strengthen trust in AI technologies and create legal certainty. Since its presentation, the proposal has been discussed in both the Council and the European Parliament. The German Federal Government is represented by the Economic Affairs Ministry in the Council of ministers responsible for telecommunications and information society.