On 16th June, the European Parliament, in plenary session, confirmed the provisional agreement reached in trilogues on the Digital Omnibus on AI, with 423 votes in favour, 57 against and 174 abstentions.

‍

The adopted text can be found here: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2026-0198_EN.pdf

‍

One key element for FESI is that the text postpones the application of certain parts of the AI Act to ensure that the necessary standards and support measures are in place. Obligations on high-risk AI systems will apply:

• from 2 December 2027 for stand-alone high risk AI systems (including AI used in employment)
• from 2 August 2028 for AI systems embedded as safety components and covered by EU sectoral legislation on safety and market surveillance.

The law also delays the application of the Article 50(2) watermarking obligations until 2 December 2026. These obligations apply to providers (rather than deployers) of AI-generated content and require such content to be labelled in a machine-readable format to improve transparency.

Other changes include clarifying what qualifies as a safety component, extending certain SME exemptions to small mid-cap companies, allowing the processing of personal data where strictly necessary to detect and correct bias, and streamlining enforcement of some general-purpose AI systems through the AI Office.

As a next step, the law still needs to be formally adopted by the Council before it can enter into force.

‍The Council adoption is expected before the end of June.

‍

More information here.

Link to the plenary debate here.

‍