The Digital Omnibus Dilemma. Some Ethical and Legal Considerations on the Postponement of Certain Provisions of the European Artificial Intelligence Act.

On 19 November 2025, the European Commission presented the Digital Omnibus package, a sweeping legislative initiative that includes targeted amendments to the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation EU 2024/1689). The central proposal is the postponement of the compliance obligations applicable to high-risk AI systems — originally due to enter into force on 2 August 2026 — until at least 2 December 2027, and in certain cases until 2 August 2028. Officially justified on grounds of regulatory simplification, the lack of harmonised technical standards, and the need to support the competitiveness of European businesses, the Digital Omnibus raises profound ethical and legal concerns that this article examines from the perspective of philosophy of law and legal theory. The analysis focuses on four interrelated dimensions: (i) the subordination of the EU’s fundamental-rights-based regulatory model to economic competitiveness imperatives; (ii) the structural paradox of deregulating provisions that were never effectively applied, as a result of institutional failures by the Commission and Member States; (iii) the risk that the omnibus format, applied to sensitive legislation on an accelerated and insufficiently deliberated timeline, may undermine the democratic guarantees and legal certainty that the European digital legal order is expected to uphold; and (iv) the global implications of regulatory retreat in a tripartite AI governance landscape in which the EU was designed to represent a distinctive rights-based third path. Drawing on philosophy of law, normative ethics, and comparative regulatory analysis, the article concludes that the Digital Omnibus represents not merely a technical adjustment, but the first — and deeply troubling — stress test of the European AI regulatory model.