EU official urges global rules for AI oversight

European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen said global rules are needed to regulate AI, speaking in Dublin on the sidelines of a conference on child safety online. Her comments followed attention around a former Anthropic engineer’s warning that AI could pose a threat to humanity.

Virkkunen said international cooperation on AI risks must continue because existing requirements remain uneven. The EU has a law requiring companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI, to assess and mitigate the risk of losing control over AI models, but comparable obligations have not been introduced worldwide.

European officials have also pushed broader oversight proposals. In June, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the G7 summit in France that Europe and the United States should cooperate on AI, citing complementary capabilities, shared security interests and responsibility for leadership. Germany’s Minister for Digital Affairs Carsten Wildberger has backed an international AI safety body modeled on the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Officials are watching how US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping discuss the AI arms race at a meeting scheduled for late September. US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder supported an EU-US AI partnership but warned against regulating US platforms and companies in ways that could weaken competition with China.