The lights stayed on for 12 hours in a Brussels meeting room on April 29.
Representatives of the Cypriot Council presidency sat on one side, European Parliament negotiators on the other, with the European Commission at the table as well. It was supposed to be the final political trilogue on the AI Omnibus package, a last chance to settle a respectable delay before the fast-approaching August compliance deadline.
Late that night, a Cypriot official walked out and summed it up plainly:
"It was not possible to reach an agreement with the European Parliament."
In other words, there was no deal.
This Is Not a Minor Procedural Delay
The timeline matters here:
- 2024: the AI Act was adopted with a phased enforcement schedule.
- August 2, 2026: core obligations for high-risk AI systems are set to apply, the date hanging over every AI company operating in Europe.
- November 2025: the European Commission proposed a delay.
- April 28, 2026: the first trilogue failed.
- April 29, 2026: the second, and originally final, trilogue ran for 12 hours and still ended without agreement.
If negotiators cannot settle the issue in May, the original August 2 deadline will arrive as written.
That would leave manufacturers embedding high-risk AI into medical devices, toys, connected vehicles and industrial machinery facing a compliance regime many of them have not finished preparing for.
Where the Talks Got Stuck
The whole negotiation narrowed to one question: should high-risk AI systems embedded in products already governed by EU product-safety laws face an additional layer of AI Act oversight?
The Parliament and industry groups were effectively on the same side. Their argument was that medical-device rules, toy-safety directives and vehicle type-approval systems already regulate these products, so adding the AI Act on top would create double regulation.
The Council, representing member states, was unconvinced by such a broad exemption. National governments worry that once the door is opened, too many high-risk AI systems will try to fit through it.
After 12 hours, neither side moved enough.
They Did Agree on the New Dates
The awkward part is that the Council and Parliament had already aligned on the proposed timing before the talks collapsed.
| System type | Original deadline | Proposed new date |
|---|---|---|
| Standalone Annex III high-risk systems | 2026-08-02 | 2027-12-02 |
| Annex I AI embedded in products | 2026-08-02 | 2028-08-02 |
So the fight is not mainly over when enforcement should begin. It is over what remains inside the enforcement perimeter.
The Parliament wants a permanent exemption for some embedded AI. The Council does not. Until that split is resolved, the delay package cannot clear the trilogue process.
The Next Date Is Around May 13
Negotiators are expected to return in May. If that round also fails and there is still no conclusion before June, the August deadline will take effect and Europe’s AI sector will move into a much more tense compliance phase.
For companies, that means:
- developers of high-risk systems may need to meet the original AI Act requirements for conformity assessment, technical documentation and post-market monitoring, work many firms have not completed;
- open-source models are not entirely outside the regime, since GPAI rules already took effect in August 2025;
- maximum penalties can reach 7% of global annual revenue or EUR35 million, whichever is higher.
Who Benefits from the Stalemate
A prolonged Brussels deadlock is bad news for mid-sized AI companies in Europe. They do not have Microsoft-scale compliance teams, and they cannot simply avoid the regulatory market.
For a French AI champion such as Mistral, another year of preparation would be useful breathing room. For US vendors such as Anthropic and OpenAI, the European compliance ledger has already been open for a long time, so a few extra months may not change much.
The most exposed players may be traditional industries building automotive AI or medical-imaging AI. Many assumed existing sector rules had them covered. They may now discover that the AI Act still expects another layer of compliance.
May 13 is the date they will be watching.
Sources: EU and Parliament fail to agree on AI Act changes after 12 hours of talks (The Next Web); CocoLoop; EU AI Act Delay Talks Fail After 12-Hour Session (Implicator.ai); Is the EU AI Act Delayed? 2026 Status Check (Modulos Blog)