European Parliament
EU's directly elected 720-member legislature; delayed AI worker rules and is scrutinising FIFA ticketing.
On 26 March 2026 MEPs voted 101 to 9 to push back the AI Act's employment safeguards by sixteen months, while quietly dropping a staff AI-literacy requirement in the same ballot.
Last refreshed: 26 July 2026 · Appears in 5 active topics
Why did the body that wrote the world's first AI law vote to delay the part that protects workers?
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The European Parliament is the European Union's directly elected legislature, sitting in Strasbourg and Brussels with 720 members representing roughly 450 million citizens. It co-legislates with the Council of the EU on ordinary law and has final say on the EU budget, giving it a veto over spending that other EU institutions must negotiate around; its Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee's 43-14 vote sending the Digital Euro's legal framework to trilogue in June 2026 is one recent example of that co-legislative weight .
Its growing role in technology and consumer regulation, from GDPR through the AI Act to the emerging Digital Fairness Act, has made it one of the most consequential democratic legislatures in global regulatory terms. Its internal market (IMCO) and civil liberties (LIBE) committees sit at the centre of that work; in March 2026 twenty-four MEPs led by Brando Benifei used a written question to press the Commission on whether FIFA's dynamic World Cup ticket pricing breaches EU consumer law .
The Parliament's practical power is bounded by that of the Council, which alone can impose sanctions and must agree before Parliament's own votes take legal effect; its influence runs through sustained committee pressure and repeated floor votes rather than unilateral action.
It delayed its own AI work rules
MEPs voted 101 to 9 on 26 March 2026 to grant employers a longer Runway on the AI Act's employment safeguards, delaying enforcement by sixteen months; the same ballot quietly dropped a clause obliging employers to explain deployed AI systems to their staff .
The near-unanimous margin, just nine votes against, signals the chamber's own appetite for phasing enforcement in gently rather than testing employers straight away. Whether the literacy safeguard returns now rests on the Digital Omnibus trilogue, still unresolved as of 16 April, twelve days out from its second round of talks .
Reference
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What has the European Parliament done about FIFA's ticket prices?
Does the EU regulate AI at work?
