Europe Needs Implementation, Not More Strategy Papers The European AI Forum (EAIF), the leading voice of Europe’s AI startup and innovation ecosystem, welcomes the intention behind the European Commission’s newly presented AI Continent Action Plan. Despite its ambitious tone, the plan largely repackages familiar ideas. As with earlier announcements, it lacks the one thing Europe needs most: a binding governance structure that prioritizes, aligns, and delivers. What’s missing is not vision, but concrete implementation. A clear roadmap, operational structures, and fast-track mechanisms must replace strategy papers and vision slides. “The AI Continent Action Plan contains promising elements – but unless we now move from vision to execution, we risk repeating past mistakes. Europe doesn't need another vision deck – it needs infrastructure that works.” Outdated funding procedures, fragmented responsibilities, and slow approvals continue to stifle innovation. While other regions scale their AI capabilities, Europe loses valuable time to bureaucracy. The action plan offers no clear answer to the question of how we build competitive European foundation models – or how the planned five 100,000-core HPC clusters will be meaningfully used. Despite high investment figures, it remains unclear who will lead, how funds will be deployed, and how progress will be measured. KPIs, timelines, and monitoring structures are essential – but still missing. We also need to address the failure to provide timely standards to ensure compliance with the AI Act. As the ABC document points out, we are in danger of AI companies failing to pass audits on time and receiving penalties. Similarly, we need AI oversight committees to be involved in sandbox operations. The lack of regulator involvement in sandboxes dooms this idea to failure.Europe also needs to build demand: through agile procurement, faster market access, and full integration of startups into strategic projects. The AI Service Desk is a minimal first step that falls short of addressing the complexity of the AI Act. Likewise, the announced talent measures lack the ambition needed to attract and retain world-class AI talent. “Europe has the talent, the infrastructure plans, and the research excellence. Now we need to remove the friction – and deploy the resources.” To succeed, the Commission and Member States must work closely with the AI community and deliver practical, accessible instruments from day one. Digital sovereignty demands bold decisions, operational clarity, and immediate action.
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