Siemens Chairman's EU AI Adviser Role Sparks Backlash

BRUSSELS — The appointment of Siemens’ chairman as a European Commission adviser on industrial AI is triggering a backlash in Brussels, weeks after the German engineering giant helped secure a rollback of the EU’s AI rules.

"My first reaction was just: Wow," said Kim van Sparrentak, a Dutch lawmaker who led the work on the AI file for the Greens in the European Parliament.

"They fought hard against AI rules for themselves, they lobby against technological sovereignty, and now they get to decide how we are going to integrate AI," she said.

On Wednesday, the Commission appointed Jim Hagemann Snabe, Siemens’ chairman and a former CEO of software multinational SAP, as an adviser to President Ursula von der Leyen and tech chief Henna Virkkunen on how to boost Europe’s use of AI in industry.

The 60-year-old Dane will serve unpaid until the end of March 2027 and is expected to produce a report on issues including AI infrastructure, frontier AI technologies and industrial AI adoption, the Commission said Wednesday.

But the appointment is drawing fire because of Siemens’ recent role in lobbying to loosen the AI rules now shaping Europe’s industrial strategy.

A key part of the debate over the EU's effort to revise its 2024 artificial intelligence law was whether industrial AI applications, covered by the EU's machinery rules, should be largely exempt from the AI law's scope.

Siemens publicly backed such an exemption, arguing that overlapping rules would hamper innovation. The company received support from top German officials, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. In May, a European Parliament committee agreed to grant the exemption, advancing the file toward a full plenary vote expected to be taken in two weeks time.

The German engineering firm is also part of European Tech Creators, a new lobbying force in Brussels that brings together Siemens, SAP, ASML, Mistral, Airbus, Ericsson and Nokia. The group has previously met with von der Leyen and plans to seek meetings with senior Commission officials once a quarter.

For lawmakers who opposed the weakening of the EU’s AI law, Snabe’s appointment only deepened concerns.

"Appointing Siemens' chairman after Siemens legitimately but fiercely lobbied to weaken the AI Act sends the wrong political signal," said Brando Benifei, an Italian Social Democrat and the Parliament's lead negotiator on AI.

Transparency campaigners were blunter.

"It's hard to imagine a more obvious conflict of interest," Bram Vranken, researcher at the lobbyist watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory, said.

It’s not the first time the Commission has drawn heat for appointing an adviser.

In 2023, American economist Fiona Scott Morton withdrew from her appointment as the institution’s chief competition economist after criticism over her past consulting work for companies including Microsoft and Apple, as well as objections from French President Emmanuel Macron over appointing a non-EU candidate to the role.

The next year, Markus Pieper, a German member of the European Parliament, resigned just hours before his first day as representative for small-and-medium sized enterprises after his fellow lawmakers raised transparency concerns about the process that led to his appointment.

The Commission said Wednesday it had assessed Snabe's appointment and found no conflict of interest between his advisory mandate and his professional roles.

Snabe will recuse himself from advisory or board positions at Google Cloud’s European arm and U.S. enterprise AI company C3 AI, the Commission said. There was no mention of recusing himself from his role at Siemens.

The Commission did not respond to POLITICO’s questions about whether meetings Snabe holds in the role would be registered as contacts with Siemens in the EU’s lobbyist register, or how it would shield the final report from Siemens’ influence.

European Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari told reporters on Thursday that "specific safeguards" were put in place to ensure that "all the potential conflict of interest aspects are eliminated." He didn't give more details, citing data protection reasons.

Prominent lawmakers didn't buy that and cited concerns about the expected outcome.

"Policies should serve the interest of the European people, not industry alone," said German Greens lawmaker Sergey Lagodinsky.

Siemens didn't respond to a request for comment.