How AI, Ukraine and election fears shaped the EU’s Davos

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Good morning. News to start: Brussels is working on ways to unlock more than €100bn in EU funding for Poland even if the country’s president vetoes Donald Tusk’s judicial reforms.

Today, I wrap up what I understood to be the key issues that EU leaders, officials and delegates have wrestled with at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, plus my Brussels colleague reports on the first EU institution to offer Ukraine — and other EU candidate countries — a seat at the table.

Have a great weekend.

Davos lowdown

Is war fatigue undermining Europe’s support to Ukraine? Will our elections be safe? Are our AI regulations fit for purpose?

These were some of the big questions bounced around by EU delegates at the World Economic Forum this week, with a poignant lack of clear answers to all.

On Ukraine, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said the quiet bit out loud, explicitly citing “war fatigue” among the public. France’s Emmanuel Macron didn’t go that far, but his exhortations to continue sending Kyiv support made clear he saw a clear risk of the opposite. 

In informal conversations throughout the week, European officials voiced confidence that political compromises would be found to keep cash and weapons flowing, but it was clear that all had hoped the ongoing wrangling over the EU’s contribution would have been settled by now.

The threat to the EU election this June posed by disinformation and foreign interference was voiced far more clearly. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen made this the central theme of her speech, and the issue was raised on countless discussion panels.

At one press briefing hosted by a leading technology group, senior executives were peppered with questions about fighting disinformation during this “year of democracy”. Many feel the EU vote, across 27 states and featuring a tapestry of parties, is particularly vulnerable.

“In every country there are some vulnerabilities . . . which might be misused to create the atmosphere that voting is in vain, that the elections will be manipulated,” said Věra Jourová, commission vice-president for values and transparency.

She spent much of her time in Davos meeting tech executives, urging them to steel their platforms to prevent malign actors from targeting voters and compromising the election.

Davos was also the first real opportunity for the fast-growing industry to give feedback on the EU’s AI act, passed in December. Brussels hopes the legislation, the world’s first major effort to rein in the technology, will set a global “gold standard”.

Jourová said the message from her meetings was that industry was largely supportive of the legislation and it appreciated Brussels’ focus on “standardisation” that “creates a bigger legal certainty” around their platforms.

“I heard: ‘Yes, demanding legislation but concrete’,” she said. “And what I hear very often from American companies is, the European way of regulating things ahead [of time] mitigates risk.”

Chart du jour: ‘Active defence’

After its summer counteroffensive ended in failure, Ukraine is shifting to a new strategy as it prepares itself for a third year of war: holding the line and exploiting any weaknesses it can spot.

Early welcome

Despite not yet being an EU member, Ukraine will soon be able to join its first EU institution.

The European Economic and Social Committee will be the first of the bloc’s many institutions to allow candidate countries to send delegates, writes Alice Hancock.

Context: The EESC is an advisory body with 329 members that come from workers’ unions, civil society groups and employer organisations. It does not play any legislative role, but publishes opinions that help feed into lawmaking in Brussels.

Oliver Röpke, the EESC president, said that including countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Turkey and those in the western Balkans was an “important step” to involve them more closely in EU work and avoid “past mistakes” during enlargement.

EU leaders in December agreed to begin negotiations on Ukraine and Moldova’s membership to the bloc. But that is only the start of a long process, subject to potential veto by any of the EU’s 27 governments. The western Balkans have also been promised EU membership, conditional on reforms.

“If you like or if you don’t like it. It is on the table,” Röpke said about the bloc’s enlargement.

“I see the responsibility of our committee, as we did in the past, to strengthen civil society and social partners in enlargement countries,” he said, adding that historically, this process had started too late as candidate countries should build strong social organisations well ahead of entry.

Röpke said that the “enlargement members” of the EESC would be fully involved in the committee’s opinion-drafting process. Their final number will be decided at a plenary session next month.

What to watch today

1. Final day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, featuring remarks from ECB president Christine Lagarde and IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva.

2. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo visit Sweden for talks hosted by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

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