It is imperative that the AI Act’s national security exemptions be addressed. The Act should apply to AI systems created or used for national security reasons in order to avoid potential misuse, such as behavioral analysis or public surveillance, which would violate national security exclusions.

The Pegasus spyware incident highlights the necessity to make sure AI systems created or utilized for national security are not excluded from the AI Act’s purview. The incident involved journalists, human rights activists, and politicians being surveilled by their own governments. Different national security definitions inside the EU can lead to differences in citizen profiling depending on national government goals, endangering fundamental rights as well as the rule of law.

It is clear that AI is being used in targeted messaging and disinformation campaigns in light of the impending elections in Poland and the European Parliament. In order to stop power abuse and exploitation, transparency in AI technologies is essential. This includes fact-checking, content banning, and the ability to recognize criminal behaviors.

In summary, the EU AI Act needs to make clear that the rule of law is important and require impact assessments to take both fundamental rights and rule of law concepts into account. Our society will be significantly shaped by the regulatory decisions we make now as AI becomes more and more embedded into our daily lives. Lawmakers in the EU need to take advantage of this chance to create laws that protect our rights and the rule of law while utilizing AI’s promise.

Jonathan Day is the Communications Manager at Civil Liberties Union For Europe, a campaign network located in Berlin that aims to bolster the rule of law throughout the European Union, while Eva Simon leads advocacy for Tech & Rights.

As part of the European Union’s efforts to reform migration, a preliminary agreement was struck on Wednesday that paves the way for the creation of unified legislation intended to handle the unanticipated enormous surge of asylum seekers. Finalized during a meeting of ambassadors in Brussels, the agreement—dubbed the Crisis Regulation—was meant to break the deadlock that interior ministers had failed to resolve the week before when Italy abruptly vetoed the draft proposal.

Italy objected mainly to a part of the law pertaining to Mediterranean Sea search-and-rescue missions carried out by non-governmental organization (NGO) vessels, which Rome saw as a “pull factor” drawing more migrants to European shores. Germany, a crucial vote that was needed to reach the required qualified majority, supported the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), claiming that it was morally, legally, and humanitarianly obligated to save lives at sea. Italian officials had previously criticized this approach due to Germany’s public backing of these NGOs.

A previous attempt at an agreement had been foiled by the impasse between Berlin and Rome, even if expectations were increased by a new compromise text proposed by Spain, which is currently holding the rotating presidency of the EU Council. On Wednesday, after conferring with their national governments, the ambassadors managed to break the impasse.

According to diplomatic sources quoted by Euronews, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary—two major opponents of the EU’s immigration reform—voted against the text.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, praised the deal as a “real game changer,” and Ylva Johansson, commissioner for home affairs, stressed that it was accomplished “with pragmatism, commitment, and unity.” This preliminary accord will now serve as the Council’s joint position in talks with the European Parliament.

In extraordinary circumstances, such as the 2015–2016 migration crisis, when the EU’s asylum system encounters an abrupt and significant influx of migrants, the Crisis Regulation specifies guidelines to be followed. Member states would be able to impose more stringent measures in reaction to such unanticipated surges, such as holding asylum seekers at the border for a maximum of 20 weeks while their bids for international protection are being assessed. Rejected applications may also be held longer in custody—up to 20 weeks at most—than the customary maximum of 12 weeks, until the deportation procedure is finished.

Concerns have been raised by NGOs that these deviations might result in a large-scale detention, undermine the integrity of asylum processes, and raise the possibility of refoulement, which is the deportation of migrants to nations where they might suffer danger. Germany abstained from voting on the bill until recently due to similar concerns, especially with regard to the rights of children and family members.

Berlin and Rome were divided on the recital, which was then changed to read, “Humanitarian aid operations should not be considered as instrumentalization of migrants when there is no aim to destabilize the Union or a Member State.”

When the Crisis Regulation was first drafted, it also had provisions for accelerating the processing of asylum requests from people escaping extremely dangerous circumstances, like armed conflicts. But this article is much changed in the compromise draft that was accepted on Wednesday; it no longer mentions “immediate protection.”

The final component of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which was introduced by the European Commission in September 2020 to replace the haphazard crisis management of the previous ten years with uniform and explicit regulations that apply to all member states, was the Council’s position on the Crisis Regulation. In order to prevent frontline countries like Greece and Italy from being left to handle the problems associated with migration on their own, this comprehensive reform seeks to achieve a balance between responsibility and solidarity.

Fundamentally, the New Pact establishes a system of “mandatory solidarity,” giving member states three choices for controlling the flow of migrants: admitting a specific number of successful asylum seekers into their borders, charging a fee of €20,000 for each migrant that they choose not to relocate, or offering financial support for personnel and infrastructure needed for operations.

This mechanism is meant to function on a regular basis, whereas the Crisis Regulation is saved for exceptional circumstances that pose a threat to the EU’s asylum system. It would also apply if a foreign government used migration as a pretext to meddle in internal EU affairs—a lesson that was discovered during the border crisis that Belarus sparked in the summer of 2021.

The European Parliament, which had resolved to postpone negotiations on two distinct aspects of the New Pact until member states resolved this unresolved issue, was frustrated by the protracted impasse on the Crisis Regulation, which had the potential to jeopardize the EU’s larger attempts at migration reform. After reaching a consensus on Wednesday, talks will go back up with the goal of completing all five New Pact components in time for the 2024 European elections.

The socialist MEP working as the Crisis Regulation’s rapporteur, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, said to Euronews last week that “the Spanish presidency is the window of opportunity to conclude the Pact on Migration: it’s now or never.”