European tech leaders are banding together to ask the EU Commission to ‘stop the clock’ on the rollout of the bloc’s flagship AI Act, asking for a two-year pause on new duties meant to take effect later this summer.

Taking their demands directly to the EU Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, forty-nine business leaders from multiple sectors and countries have signed an open letter as part of the EU AI Champions Initiative asking for more time to allow for ‘reasonable implementation by companies, and for further simplification of the new rules’.

“These simplification efforts should benefit SMEs, start-ups, scale-ups and large established companies alike, who will all contribute to driving innovation if they can take advantage of clear and predictable rules,” said the letter.

Among the signatories are several tech founders from Europe’s biggest startups, including Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch, co-founder of ElevenLabs, Mati Staniszewski, and Black Forest Labs chief Robin Rombach.

Adding more weight are executives from some of Europe’s most well-established businesses, such as Airbus, BNP Paribas, Philips, Mercedes-Benz, and Siemens Energy, as well as campaign groups like the European AI Forum and German Startup Association.    

According to the signatories, Europe’s ability to lead in AI innovation is being disrupted by unclear, overlapping and increasingly complex EU regulations, putting the continent’s AI ambitions at risk and jeopardising tech development.

What is needed, said the letter, is a more proportionate, innovation-friendly regulatory approach, with the business leaders saying they have already developed detailed proposals that are ready to be handed over.

This latest open letter comes just days after another missive was penned to EU leaders arguing for much the same thing – a pause on the EU’s AI regulations.

Writing in Sifted, tech and enterprise leaders from firms including AI startup Synthesia, Deel, Lovable, Fern Labs, TomTom and Nordic Air Defense joined with VC firms like 20VC and Cherry Ventures to demand EU policymakers halt their plans until critical elements of the regulations are made clear for industry.

“Major European companies are raising red flags about regulatory uncertainty, while competitors in the US, UK, and Asia operate under clearer frameworks. With the Code of Practice still unfinished, Europe will create the exact fragmented environment that drives AI innovation elsewhere,” they warned.

Meanwhile, the Commission has tried to rally Big Tech support for its plans, having invited representatives from leading AI firms like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google for input on the already delayed Code of Practice for general-purpose AI before it enters into force in August.

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According to reports from Euronews, citing sources familiar with the issue, the Commission is considering offering companies that sign onto the Code a grace period before they need to comply with the new measures introduced by the AI Act.

However, European lawmakers may well face an uphill battle, with the Commission’s previous efforts to introduce the voluntary guidelines for managing AI coming under fire from major tech players ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris last February.

At the time, Google’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, called the plan a “step in the wrong direction”, while Meta’s top lobbyist, Joel Kaplan, expressed even sharper opposition, describing the proposed requirements as “unworkable and technically unfeasible.”