The EU has a problem:
it is lagging behind in technological developments on Artificial Intelligence
(AI). To solve it, the EU does what it does best: it regulates. Is this going
to be enough? To attempt an answer, this article examines the foreign affairs
ramification of the EU’s AI policy, particularly through the lens of the
foreign policy implications of the AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689). We
cluster these foreign policy implications around three themes: areas in which
the EU leads, dossiers on which it cooperates with partners, and issues on
which it seeks to export its values. By drawing on literature on issue
salience, we argue that this legislative initiative aligns with the EU’s broader
strategy to harness its economic and regulatory power to support foreign policy
goals. The contribution of this article is that it offers a policy commentary
on the connection between internal and external EU policies, and on how the EU
leverages its market power on the international arena at a time of increased
geopolitical competition. The answer to the opening question is that EU
institutions hope that regulation is enough to eventually make the EU
competitive in this domain, but reality is not proving them right.