EU liberals condemn U.S. AI export curbs on Anthropic as “digital colonization” threat

Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament strongly condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to restrict European access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5, two leading AI models. The development comes the day before the European Parliament’s debate on technological sovereignty and Europe’s place in the global AI race. The debate is requested by Renew Europe.

The American move demonstrates the strategic importance of artificial intelligence and the growing geopolitical competition surrounding frontier technologies. The EU must accelerate investment in research, innovation, digital infrastructure, advanced computing capacity and the skills needed to compete in the technologies that will shape the global economy and security environment.

Bart Groothuis, Member in the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and who negotiated the current Chips Act, stated:

“These restrictions are a clear example of the current American ‘nobody but us’ mentality. While software is vulnerable worldwide, the mitigation of potential hazard is left to Americans only. It’s irresponsible. With the ascent of frontier AI models, we have a huge task ahead of us to avoid a cyber bloodbath. Once again: this shows that Europe needs its own LLM’s and open weight models or face digital colonization.”

Christophe Grudler, coordinator of the committee on Industry, Research and Energy, hammered out:

“The United States is once again demonstrating what we Liberals and Democrats have warned about so many times since Trump entered into office; that the US holds a real ‘kill-switch’ over essential technologies and that they are more than willing to use it. Europe needs put on the turbo in its strive to reach digital independence. The only way to reach it is by mobilising billions of euros in our own European AI ecosystem.”

The Renew group argues that as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly intertwined with economic competitiveness, cybersecurity and national security, Europe must act with urgency and not take access to critical technological infrastructure for granted. In their view, strategic autonomy in the digital age will not be achieved through isolation, but through innovation, investment and the ability to remain a leading participant in global technological development.

The strong reaction follows the Trump administration’s imposition of export controls on Anthropic’s most advanced AI models. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick ordered the company to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals and destinations worldwide, citing national security risks – particularly the potential diversion of the models to military or intelligence users in countries like China and Russia, and concerns over jailbreaking safeguards that could expose software vulnerabilities.

Anthropic, which had publicly launched Fable 5 just days earlier with claimed cybersecurity safeguards, was forced to disable both models globally to comply with the order, cutting off access for users everywhere, including in Europe. Senior Anthropic staff met with U.S. officials on Monday in an attempt to resolve the dispute, but the restrictions remain in place for now.

This marks the first use of certain powers under the 2018 Export Control Reform Act for emerging technologies and has intensified debate about U.S. dominance in frontier AI, transatlantic tech relations, and Europe’s reliance on American models. Cybersecurity experts have urged the administration to ease the curbs, highlighting tensions between rapid innovation and security concerns in the global AI race.

Caption: MEP Christophe Grudler, coordinator of the committee on Industry, Research and Energy, in the European Parliament. [European Parliament Multimedia Centre]