Title VI: GOVERNANCE
TITLE VI
GOVERNANCE
CHAPTER 1
EUROPEAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BOARD
SECTION 1: General provisions on the European Artificial Intelligence
Office
Article 56
Establishment of the European Artificial Intelligence Office
1. The ‘European Artificial Intelligence Office’ (the ‘AI Office’) is hereby established. The AI Office shall be an independent body of the Union. It shall have legal personality.
2. The AI Office shall have a secretariat, and shall be adequately funded and staffed for the purpose of performing its tasks pursuant to this Regulation:
2 a. The seat of the AI Office shall be in Brussels.
(a) contribute to the effective cooperation of the national supervisory authorities and the Commission with regard to matters covered by this Regulation;
(b) coordinate and contribute to guidance and analysis by the Commission and the national supervisory authorities and other competent authorities on emerging issues across the internal market with regard to matters covered by this Regulation;
(c) assist the national supervisory authorities and the Commission in ensuring the consistent application of this Regulation.
Article 56 a
Structure
The administrative and management structure of the AI Office shall comprise:
(a) a management board, including a chair
(b) a secretariat managed by an executive director;
(c) an advisory forum.
Article 56 b
Tasks of the AI Office
The AI Office shall carry out the following tasks:
a) support, advise, and cooperate with Member States, national supervisory authorities, the Commission and other Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies with regard to the implementation of this Regulation;
b) monitor and ensure the effective and consistent application of this Regulation, without prejudice to the tasks of national supervisory authorities;
c) contribute to the coordination among national supervisory authorities responsible for the application of this Regulation,
d) serve as a mediator in discussions about serious disagreements that may arise between competentauthorities regarding the application of the Regulation
e) coordinate joint investigations, pursuant to Article 66a;
f) contribute to the effective cooperation with the competent authorities of third countries and with international organisations,
g) collect and share Member States’ expertise and best practices and to assist Member States national supervisory authorities and the Commission in developing the organizational and technical expertise required for the implementation of this Regulation, including by means of facilitating the creation and maintenance of a Union pool of experts
h) examine, on its own initiative or upon the request of its management board or the Commission, questions relating to the implementation of this Regulation and to issue opinions, recommendations or written contributions including with regard to:
(i) technical specifications or existing standards;
(ii) the Commission’s guidelines
(iii) codes of conduct and the application thereof, in close cooperation with industry and other relevant stakeholders;
(iv) the possible revision of the Regulation, the preparation of the delegated acts, and possible alignments of this Regulation with the legal acts listed in Annex II;
(v) trends, such as European global competitiveness in artificial intelligence, the uptake of artificial intelligence in the Union, the development of digital skills, and emerging systemic threats relating to artificial intelligence
(vi) guidance on how this Regulation applies to the ever evolving typology of AI value chains, in particular on the resulting implications in terms of accountability of all the entities involved
i) issue:
(i) an annual report that includes an evaluation of the implementation of this Regulation, a review of serious incident reports as referred to in Article 62 and the functioning of the database referred to in Article 60 and
(ii) recommendations to the Commission on the categorisation of prohibited practices, high-risk AI systems referred to in Annex III, the codes of conduct referred to in Article 69, and the application of the general principles outlines in Article 4a
j) assist authorities in the establishment and development of regulatory sandboxes and to facilitate cooperation among regulatory sandboxes;
k) organise meetings with Union agencies and governance bodies whose tasks are related to artificial intelligence and the implementation of this Regulation;
l) organise quarterly consultations with the advisory forum, and, where appropriate, public consultations with other stakeholders, and to make the results of those consultations public on its website;
m) promote public awareness and understanding of the benefits, risks, safeguards and rights and obligations in relation to the use of AI systems;
n) facilitate the development of common criteria and a shared understanding among market operators and competent authorities of the relevant concepts provided for in this Regulation;
o) provide monitoring of foundation models and to organise a regular dialogue with the developers of foundation models with regard to their compliance as well as AI systems that make use of such AI models
p) provide interpretive guidance on how the AI Act applies to the ever evolving typology of AI value chains, and what the resulting implications in terms of accountability of all the entities involved will be under the different scenarios based on the generally acknowledged state of the art, including as reflected in relevant harmonized standards;
q) provide particular oversight and monitoring and institutionalize regular dialogue with the providers of foundation models about the compliance of foundation models as well as AI systems that make use of such AI models with Article 28b of this Regulation, and about industry best practices for selfgovernance. Any such meeting shall be open to national supervisory authorities, notified bodies and market surveillance authorities to attend and contribute
r) issue and periodically update guidelines on the thresholds that qualify training a foundation model as a large training run, record and monitor known instances of large training runs, and issue an annual report on the state of play in the development, proliferation, and use of foundation models alongside policy options to address risks and opportunities specific to foundation models.
s) promote AI literacy pursuant to Article 4b.
Article 56 c
Accountability, independence, and transparency
1. The AI Office shall:
a. be accountable to the European Parliament and to the Council in accordance with this Regulation;
b. act independently when carrying out its tasks or exercising its powers; and
c. ensure a high level of transparency concerning its activities and develop good administrative practices in that regard.
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 shall apply to documents held by the AI Office.
SECTION 2: Management Board
Article 57
Secretariat
1. The activities of the secretariat shall be managed by an executive director. The executive director shall be accountable to the management board. Without prejudice to the respective powers of the management board and the Union institutions, the executive director shall neither seek nor take instructions from any government or from any other body.
2. The executive director shall attend hearings on any matter linked to the AI Office's activities and shall report on the performance of the executive director’s duties when invited to do so by the European Parliament or the Council.
3. The executive director shall represent the AI Office, including in international fora for cooperation with regard to artificial intelligence.
4. The secretariat shall provide the management board and the advisory forum with the analytical, administrative and logistical support necessary to fulfil the tasks of the AI Office, including by:
(a) Implementing the decisions, programmes and activities adopted by the management board;
(b) preparing each year the draft single programming document, the draft budget, the annual activity report on the AI Office, the draft opinions and the draft positions of the AI Office, and submit them to the management board
(c) Coordinating with international fora for cooperation on artificial intelligence;
SECTION 4: Advisory Forum
Article - 57 a
Composition of the management board
1. The management board shall be composed of the following members:
(a) one representative of each Member State’s national supervisory authority;
(b) one representative from the Commission;
(c) one representative from the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS);
(d) one representative from the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA);
(e) one representative from the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA)
Each representative of a national supervisory authority shall have one vote. The representatives of the Commission, the EDPS, the ENISA and the FRA shall not have voting rights. Each member shall have a substitute. The appointment of members and substitute members of the management board shall take into account the need to gender balance. The members of the management board and their substitute members shall be made public.
2. The members and substitutes members of the management board shall not hold conflicting positions or commercial interests with regard to any topic related to the application of this Regulation.
3. The rules for the meetings and voting of the management board and the appointment and removal of the Executive Director shall be laid down in the rules of procedure referred to in Article – 57 b, point (a).
Article - 57 b
Functions of the management board
1. The management board shall have the following tasks:
(a) to make strategic decisions on the activities of the AI Office and to adopt its rules of procedure by a two-thirds majority of its members;
(b) to implement its rules of procedure;
(c) to adopt the AI Office’s single programming document as well as it annual public report and transmit both to the European Parliament, to the Council, to the Commission, and to the Court of Auditors;
(d) to adopt the AI Office’s budget;
(e) to appoint the executive director and, where relevant, to extend or curtail the executive director’s term of office or remove him or her from office;
(f) to decide on the establishment of the AI Office’s internal structures and, where necessary, the modification of those internal structures necessary for the fulfilment of the AI Office tasks;
Article - 57 c
Chair of the management board
1. The management board shall elect a Chair and two deputy Chairs from among its voting members, by simple majority. 2. The term of office of the Chair and of the deputy Chairs shall be four years. The terms of the Chair and of the deputy Chairs renewable once.
SECTION 3: Secretariat
Article 58
Advisory Forum
The advisory forum shall provide the AI Office with stakeholder input in matters relating to this Regulation, in particular with regard to the tasks set out in Article 56b point (l).
The membership of the advisory forum shall represent a balanced selection of stakeholders, including industry, startups, SMEs, civil society, the social partners and academia. The membership of the advisory forum shall be balanced with regard to commercial and noncommercial interests and, within the category of commercial interests, with regards to SMEs and other undertakings.
The management board shall appoint the members of the advisory forum in accordance with the selection procedure established in the AI Office’s rules of procedure and taking into account the need for transparency and in accordance with the criteria set out in paragraph 2;
The term of office of the members of the advisory forum shall be two years, which may be extended by up to no more than four years.
The European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) shall be permanent members of the Advisory Forum. The Joint Research Centre shall be permanent member, without voting rights.
The advisory forum shall draw up its rules of procedure. It shall elect two co-Chairs from among its members, in accordance with criteria set out in paragraph 2. The term of office of the co-Chairs shall be two years, renewable once.
The advisory forum shall hold meetings at least four times a year. The advisory forum may invite experts and other stakeholders to its meetings. The executive director may attend, ex officio, the meetings of the advisory forum.
In fulfilling its role as set out in paragraph 1, the advisory forum may prepare opinions, recommendations and written contributions.
The advisory forum may establish standing or temporary subgroups as appropriate for the purpose of examining specific questions related to the objectives of this Regulation.
The advisory forum shall prepare an annual report of its activities. That report shall be made publicly available.
SECTION 5: European Authorities on benchmarking
Article 58 a
Benchmarking
The European authorities on benchmarking referred to in Article 15 (1a) and the AI Office shall, in close cooperation with international partners, jointly develop cost-effective guidance and capabilities to measure and benchmark aspects of AI systems and AI components, and in particular of foundation models relevant to the compliance and enforcement of this Regulation based on the generally acknowledged state of the art, including as reflected in relevant harmonized standards.
CHAPTER 2
NATIONAL COMPETENT AUTHORITIES
Article 59
Designation of national supervisory authorities
1. Each Member State shall designate one national supervisory authority, which shall be organised so as to safeguard the objectivity and impartiality of its activities and tasks by ...[three months after the date of entry into force of this Regulation].
2. The national supervisory authority shall ensure the application and implementation of this Regulation. With regard to high-risk AI systems, related to products to which legal acts listed in Annex II apply, the competent authorities designated under those legal acts shall continue to lead the administrative procedures. However, to the extent a case involves aspects exclusively covered by this Regulation, those competent authorities shall be bound by the measures related to those aspects issued by the national supervisory authority designated under this Regulation. The national supervisory authority shall act as market surveillance authority.
3. Member States shall make publicly available and communicate to the AI Office and the Commission the national supervisory authority and information on how it can be contacted, by… [three months after the date of entry into force of this Regulation]. The national supervisory authority shall act as single point of contact for this Regulation and should be contactable though electronic communications means.
4. Member States shall ensure that the national supervisory authority is provided with adequate technical, financial and human resources, and infrastructure to fulfil their tasks effectively under this Regulation. In particular, the national supervisory authority shall have a sufficient number of personnel permanently available whose competences and expertise shall include an in-depth understanding of artificial intelligence technologies, data and data computing, personal data protection, cybersecurity, competition law, fundamental rights, health and safety risks and knowledge of existing standards and legal requirements. Member States shall assess and, if deemed necessary, update competence and resource requirements referred to in this paragraph on an annual basis.
4 a. Each national supervisory authority shall exercise their powers and carry out their duties independently, impartially and without bias. The members of each national supervisory authority, in the performance of their tasks and exercise of their powers under this Regulation, shall neither seek nor take instructions from any body and shall refrain from any action incompatible with their duties.
4 b. National supervisory authorities shall satisfy the minimum cybersecurity requirements set out for public administration entities identified as operators of essential services pursuant to Directive (EU) 2022/2555.
4 c. When performing their tasks, the national supervisory authority shall act in compliance with the confidentiality obligations set out in Article 70.
5. Member States shall report to the Commission on an annual basis on the status of the financial and human resources of the national supervisory authority with an assessment of their adequacy. The Commission shall transmit that information to the AI Office for discussion and possible recommendations.
6. <deleted>
7. National supervisory authorities may provide guidance and advice on the implementation of this Regulation, including to SMEs and start-ups, taking into account the AI Office or the Commission’s guidance and advice. Whenever the national supervisory authority intend to provide guidance and advice with regard to an AI system in areas covered by other Union law, the guidance shall be drafted in consultation with the competent national authorities under that Union law, as appropriate.
8. When Union institutions, agencies and bodies fall within the scope of this Regulation, the European Data Protection Supervisor shall act as the competent authority for their supervision and coordination.
Article 59 a
Cooperation mechanism between national supervisory authorities in cases involving two or more Member States
1. Each national supervisory authority shall perform its tasks and powers conferred on in accordance with this Regulation on the territory of its own Member State.
2. In the event of a case involving two or more national supervisory authorities, the national supervisory authority of the Member State where the infringement took place shall be considered the lead supervisory authority.
3. In the cases referred to in paragraph 2, the relevant supervisory authorities shall cooperate and exchange all relevant information in due time. National supervisory authorities shall cooperate in order to reach a consensus.
