Issue #10 - Nov 7, 2025

Can EU Tech Rules Survive Trump's Pressure Campaign?

According to multiple sources (Mlex, FT), the EU simplification package about to be released on November 19 contains at least two significant concessions addressing Big Tech criticisms that have intensified over recent months.

The first concerns the use of personal data for LLM training. Until now, interpretation over whether consent should be required from users to use their public data online for training purposes has been a grey zone, leading to confusion over the legal basis for such exercises. The simplification package would clarify that legitimate interest—a much looser mechanism than consent—would apply. This decision should provide significantly more predictability and room for LLM providers to use public data for training, including Meta, who has been a vocal critic on this issue. This represents a blow to EU Data Protection authorities that have over the past months been reluctant to provide practical legal clarity, leaving LLM providers in limbo.

The second major concession concerns enforcement of the AI Act. According to the FT, "the commission is considering giving companies breaching the rules on the highest-risk AI use a 'grace period' of one year."

A pattern of retreat under sustained pressure

These two concessions didn't emerge in isolation. They represent the latest chapter in a months-long trajectory of EU capitulation under US pressure—a pattern that has been building since summer and is now unmistakable.

In July, Brussels held firm on its digital regulations despite fierce US criticism. When the EU/US trade deal was signed at the end of that month, European leaders signaled they had protected their regulatory sovereignty. But the terms told a different story: the EU committed $600bn to the US economy in an asymmetric agreement that German Chancellor Merz called "significant damage" and French PM Bayrou termed a "dark day."

By August, Trump was already threatening to reopen tariff discussions specifically over the DSA and DMA, posting that countries with "Digital Taxes, Legislation, Rules, or Regulations" would face "substantial additional Tariffs" unless these "discriminatory actions are removed." The trade deal, rather than settling the issue, had established the EU's vulnerability.

In October, the European Commission attempted to push back, announcing preliminary findings that Meta and TikTok were in breach of DSA compliance. But even then, the defensive posture was evident: the EC's digital spokesman felt compelled to argue that "when accused of censorship, we prove that the DSA is doing the opposite." The subtext was clear—Europe was now justifying its own regulations rather than confidently enforcing them. More tellingly, questions immediately arose about whether the EU would actually follow through with fines, given that doing so would undoubtedly reopen a difficult trade negotiation with the US.

Damage control, not strategy

The draft proposals suggest the EU is moving toward preemptively offering concessions rather than risking confrontation. While the Commission's final position and member state approval remain uncertain, the direction of travel is clear.

If adopted as drafted, these decisions would confirm that the Trump administration's pressure campaign—backed by Big Tech—is working. The pressure has been constant even after the EU/US trade deal was signed, demonstrating that rushing that signature would ultimately lead to exactly what the US had been demanding anyway, despite EU assurances that it would not compromise on tech rules.

Overall, this reveals that the EU is currently operating in damage control mode on tech policy with no long-term agenda or vision for how to regain competitiveness. It's desperately trying to maintain a respectable façade around the landmark tech rules it carefully drafted and adopted over the past legislative term while moving to weaken key enforcement mechanisms to keep the relationship with the US intact. The bloc is no longer shaping the conversation—it's reacting to threats, making concessions without extracting reciprocal commitments, and hoping each retreat will be sufficient to avoid the next escalation.

The EU must urgently clarify its position over its tech policy agenda and stick to it. Otherwise the Trump administration will slowly and painfully impose its agenda on the EU, paving the way for heated political debates over the remaining EU’s sovereignty, but also over the whole way the EU has conducted its tech policy agenda for the past decade.