European Parliament
EU's directly elected 720-member legislature; delayed AI worker rules and is scrutinising FIFA ticketing.
The European Parliament voted 423 to 57 on 16 June to approve the Digital Omnibus, delaying the AI Act's employment rules to December 2027 and softening the employer duty on worker AI literacy from ensure to support.
Last refreshed: 3 October 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. Its 720 members represent EU citizens and co-legislate with the Council of the European Union on most EU laws and the EU budget. They work through committees, plenary votes and negotiations with the Council and Commission, sitting in Strasbourg and Brussels.
Parliament shapes law by amending proposals and setting negotiating mandates; committee votes such as the 23 June 2026 digital euro decision take it into trilogue. It cannot exercise every EU power alone. In Foreign Policy it adopts resolutions, but the Council decides on sanctions, as its June 2026 Cuba vote showed.
Its members also use written questions and letters to press other institutions. Twenty-four MEPs led by Brando Benifei asked the Commission on 31 March 2026 whether FIFA's dynamic ticket pricing breaches EU law, and 72 MEPs later wrote over FIFA's Balogun reversal. The institution practises the sovereignty it legislates for: on 4 June 2026 it replaced Google with Qwant as the default search engine for members and staff.
Parliament weakened worker AI safeguards
On 16 June 2026 the European Parliament voted 423 to 57 for the Digital Omnibus. The vote moved compliance with the AI Act's employment rules to December 2027 and changed the employer duty from ensuring worker AI literacy to supporting it.
The chamber had set that course months earlier. MEPs voted 101 to 9 on 26 March to delay the high-risk employment rules, and its committees approved the package 93 to four on 2 June. Parliament had defended the literacy clause through two failed trilogues before accepting the weaker text, a choice that leaves workers with a later and less enforceable safeguard.
Parliament opened digital euro talks
On 23 June 2026 Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee approved the Digital Euro legal framework by 43 votes to 14. The decision sent Parliament into formal negotiations with the Council and Commission on the proposed public digital payment system.
The sovereigntist right then forced a floor vote, and the full chamber confirmed the negotiating mandate by 416 votes to 169 on 9 July. That vote fixed the position Parliament's negotiators carry into trilogue, where a final text must be agreed with the Council and Commission before a digital euro can be issued.
Parliament's sanctions vote lacked legal force
On 18 June 2026 the European Parliament voted 283 to 199 to urge sanctions on Cuba's President Miguel Díaz-Canel and the leaders of the military conglomerate. It also called for suspension of the EU-Cuba cooperation agreement signed in 2016.
The resolution created no sanctions. Only member governments in the Council can impose them, and no matching Council action had followed by 30 June. For Parliament, the episode shows the limit of its foreign-policy role: it can put pressure on record, but national governments decide whether that pressure becomes binding law.
Reference
Why did the digital-euro vote need to be forced onto the floor?
Did the European Parliament vote for the digital euro?
What is the European Parliament's role in EU law?
What has the European Parliament done about FIFA's ticket prices?
Does the EU regulate AI at work?
Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Updated 3 October 2026. Editorial standards.