Regulatory Scrutiny Board opinion on Cloud and AI Act

The Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB) of the European Commission issues multiple formal opinions on the Impact Assessment for the “Cloud and AI Development Act” (PLAN/2025/815), requesting revisions and further specification before the initiative proceeds.

• Main announcement: The RSB issued sequential opinions (Overall opinion: NEGATIVE; Overall 2nd opinion: NEGATIVE; Overall 3rd opinion: POSITIVE) and in each set out required improvements, including clearer specification of sovereign cloud criteria (PM11, PM15, PM16, PM19), explicit description of non-price award criteria and open-source prioritisation (PM20, PM22), and reflection of migration and porting costs in the total cost assessment. The RSB records submission dates and procedures: submissions on 10 December 2025 (meeting 14 January 2026), 25 February 2026 (written procedure), and 30 April 2026 (written procedure).

• Background and required follow-up: The RSB asks the lead Service/DG to revise the report and executive summary and resubmit for final opinion, to better analyse interplay with EUCS (European Cybersecurity Certification Scheme for Cloud Services), coherence with the Cybersecurity Act and public procurement revision, quantify transition/adjustment costs, and provide robust, verifiable assumptions in the cost-benefit modelling. The Board also highlights the need to explain how “countries with dependencies” are identified and how equivalence/superiority of Open Source will be assessed.