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The European Council and European Parliament reached a provisional agreement last week on a proposal to “streamline” certain rules regarding artificial intelligence (AI), including delaying their implementation, reducing requirements for certain businesses, and increasing focus on reducing harm to children.
The proposal to change certain aspects of the European Union’s AI Act, which entered into force in August 2024, forms part of the EU’s so-called “Omnibus VII” legislative package put forward by the bloc’s executive body, the European Commission, with the aim of simplifying the EU’s digital legislative framework.
Since February 2025, as a follow-up to a call from EU leaders for a streamlining of incoming legislation, the Commission put forward 10 “Omnibus” packages aiming to simplify existing legislation across a range of areas, including sustainability, investment, agriculture, defense, environment, the automotive sector, food safety, and AI.
These packages went to the EU’s co-legislators, the European Council and Parliament—the former being the body that sets the overall political direction of the EU, while the latter represents EU citizens and helps pass laws—to be amended and agreed upon.
Streamlining AI rules
In terms of AI, the Commission proposed to adjust the timeline for applying rules on high-risk AI systems by up to 16 months, so that the rules start to apply once the needed standards and tools are available.
Per the provisional agreement, the new application dates for so-called “high-risk rules”—those affecting high-risk AI systems such as AI intended for employment decisions, education, insurance pricing, emotion recognition, sensitive biometric, or critical infrastructure—will be December 2, 2027, for stand-alone and August 2, 2028, for high-risk AI systems embedded in products. The previous deadline was August 2, 2026.
To avoid regulatory confusion or overlap in situations where sectoral law has similar AI-specific requirements to the AI Act, such as medical devices, toys, lifts, machinery, and watercraft, EU lawmakers also agreed to limit the latter’s application in those specific cases through implementing acts.
Further targeted amendments to the AI Act included extending certain regulatory exemptions granted to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and small mid-caps (SMCs), reducing requirements in several cases, extending the possibility to process sensitive personal data for bias detection and mitigation, reinforcing the powers of the AI Office—the body tasked with implementing and enforcing the AI Act—and reducing governance fragmentation.
“Today’s agreement on the AI act significantly supports our companies by reducing recurring administrative costs,” said Marilena Raouna, Cyprus’s deputy minister for European affairs. Cyprus currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council.
“It ensures legal certainty and a smoother and more harmonised implementation of the rules across the Union, strengthening EU’s digital sovereignty and overall competitiveness,” she added. “This agreement is clear evidence of our institutions’ ability to act swiftly and deliver on our commitments.”
Child protection
Beyond the simplification measures, Raouna said that the proposed amendments would include an increased focus on protecting children from AI, a subject that has been under the spotlight in recent months, thanks in no small part to generative AI, such as Elon Musk’s Grok, being misused to create explicit deepfakes of children and celebrities.
“At the same time, we are stepping up the protection of children targeting risks linked to the AI systems,” she said.
According to a May 7 European Council press release, a new provision was added to the AI Act prohibiting AI practices regarding the generation of non-consensual sexual and intimate content or child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The provisional agreement on the AI Act changes must now be officially endorsed by the co-legislators before they adopt the legislative act in the coming weeks, both of which should be formalities in the light of the Counsil’s and Parliament’s provisional agreement.
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