BRUSSELS — The Business Software Alliance (BSA) warns that efforts to simplify EU digital rules risk falling short of the European Commission’s ambition as negotiations on the AI Omnibus advance, representing a missed opportunity for Europe.

While the Commission proposed targeted measures to reduce regulatory burden, discussions in the Parliament and Council risk weakening or reversing that progress. Some proposals would add new unnecessary requirements, increasing burdens instead of reducing them.

This risks undermining the EU’s ability to support responsible AI development, innovation, and global competitiveness and is clearly at odds with the Commission’s own “unprecedented simplification” objective.

“The Commission set out to simplify the AI Act, but that ambition is being diluted,” said Hadrien Valembois, Director, Policy – EMEA at BSA. “Simplification should mean fewer, targeted obligations, not blanket requirements that simply add red tape without value."

BSA urges policymakers to use trilogue negotiations to restore the original ambition and deliver meaningful, risk-based simplification that works in practice.