Debate around artificial intelligence (AI) regulation in the European Union continues to unsettle policymakers. After the AI Act was adopted in June 2024, the Commission proposed in November 2025 a “Digital AI Omnibus” to streamline and adjust its implementation. This proposal is now being discussed with other relevant regulators, member states and the European Parliament.
In Europe’s public debate, we often criticise the regulatory burden weighing on our firms, and rightly so. But we are wrong to treat regulation fatalistically, as if a company’s only role were to play as best it can within the constraints handed down from above.
In reality, the rules of the game are never fixed, as the discussions around the AI Act have shown. They emerge from a process in which argumentation matters, and those who know how to put forward a convincing argument hold a hidden advantage. European firms are too often naïve or fatalistic on this point when they could instead treat the EU’s regulatory machinery as a lever, one that helps them win markets and shield themselves from international competitors operating under more favourable rules at home.
This is exactly what their American rivals do in Europe. During negotiations on the GDPR, for example, several media outlets documented amendments submitted to the European Parliament that reproduced, word for word, lobbying proposals – notably from Amazon, eBay or the American Chamber of Commerce – identified through the LobbyPlag platform. Under pressure from major tech companies, GDPR compliance costs ended up weighing more heavily on smaller firms than on those that had pushed for the regulation’s expansion. The result? Higher barriers to entry and less competitive pressure.
AI has now become the perfect field for this strategy. Each phase of its rollout, as well as each subsequent revision, produces winners and losers. Any European company whose activity depends on AI technologies must ask itself a few simple questions: has it helped shape rules that are compatible with its strategy, and will it know how to use these rules assertively afterwards? Or will it discover them only once it is too late to influence their logic, forced to shoulder compliance costs without deriving any benefit?
The same logic applies to the renegotiation of cloud contracts, to conditions of access to computing infrastructure, and to clauses governing data portability. The Data Act is coming into force, and interoperability codes of conduct will soon follow. Companies can use these tools in negotiations that are often one‑sided: the possibility of referring a case to a competition authority, when backed by robust analysis, should act as a credible threat that can rebalance a discussion, not a last resort to be activated once the dice have already been cast.
In addition to access and influence over the right people, this strategy depends on the production of credible arguments grounded in law and economic analysis, arguments whose objectivity can be tested and whose conclusions can be challenged on factual grounds. These must be brought both to legislators, who design the rules of the game, and to the authorities that enforce them, whether DG COMP, the French Competition Authority or a sectoral regulator. Each of these institutions thinks in terms of market effects and consumer impact; it is therefore using these terms that companies must encourage the institutions to support European businesses without undermining the market as a whole. EU policymakers, inspired by the Draghi and Letta reports on the drivers and obstacles shaping the single market, are calling for this contribution and are ready to develop frameworks that support it.
These authorities are not above legitimate criticism, but they have one major strength: more than others, they base decisions on analysis rather than pressure or intuition. This is a playing field where the quality of the argument wins, provided it is formulated with the necessary rigour and advanced at the moment when the rule can still be shaped.
It is time to stop seeing regulation as an obstacle or a cost to minimise. European companies must go on the offensive, shaping the rules of the game and the way they are applied. These are powerful tools, and we have long underestimated their value.
Pascale Déchamps – Partner, Accuracy
When European regulation becomes a strategic weapon for our companies