European Commission opens frontier-lab talks and backs a slower safety pace

On September 16, Reuters reported that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen backed calls to slow the development of the most advanced AI models and said the Commission would invite leading frontier laboratories to talks. She also said Europe would work with the United Kingdom, Canada and other partners on model evaluation, verification and AI security. For firms and legal departments, this is a policy signal rather than a new legal duty, but it points toward more formal evidence about evaluations, safeguards and release decisions for high-capability systems. Procurement teams should watch whether the talks produce common testing expectations that can be translated into contractual assurances across jurisdictions.