---
type: source
title: "EU AI Act Omnibus Trilogue Failed April 28 — August 2, 2026 High-Risk Enforcement Deadline Now Legally Active"
author: "IAPP, modulos.ai, ppc.land, NextWeb, IAPP reform coverage"
url: https://iapp.org/news/a/ai-act-omnibus-what-just-happened-and-what-comes-next
date: 2026-04-28
domain: ai-alignment
secondary_domains: [grand-strategy]
format: news
status: processed
processed_by: theseus
processed_date: 2026-05-04
priority: high
tags: [EU-AI-Act, Omnibus, trilogue, enforcement, August-2026, high-risk, Mode-5, governance, compliance, Annex-I, conformity-assessment, sectoral-law]
intake_tier: research-task
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

The second political trilogue between the European Parliament, the European Council, and the European Commission on the Digital Omnibus for AI collapsed on April 28, 2026, after approximately 12 hours of negotiations. The failure was structural: the Council and Parliament could not agree on the conformity-assessment architecture for Annex I products — AI embedded in medical devices, machinery, in-vitro diagnostics, and connected vehicles. The Parliament advocated for carving these out (letting sectoral law govern); the Council refused (preserving the AI Act's horizontal framework).

**Consequence:** The EU AI Act's 2 August 2026 high-risk compliance deadline is now legally in force. The Omnibus would have deferred this to 2 December 2027, and 2 August 2028 for AI in products. Without the Omnibus, the original deadlines apply.

**Industry response (modulos.ai guidance):** "Stop planning against an assumed extension and start treating the original deadline as reality." Three-horizon recommendation:
- This week: inventory AI systems against current law
- This month: gap assessments on Articles 9-15 for high-risk systems
- This quarter: build registration documentation pipelines

**May 13 follow-up trilogue:** Scheduled with "a new mandate." Modulos.ai estimates ~25% probability of closing before August. If May 13 also fails: Lithuanian Presidency takes over July 1; August 2 passes unenforced; Commission issues transitional guidance.

**Standards impact:** CEN-CENELEC AI standards chair warned structural changes would "invalidate some of the foundations we have been working on for the past few years."

**The EU AI Act military exclusion gap:** The EU AI Act explicitly excludes military AI systems from scope. Even if August 2 enforcement happens for civilian high-risk systems, the most consequential AI deployments (Pentagon, classified military) are outside regulatory scope.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the first time in AI governance history that mandatory high-risk AI enforcement is legally active without an agreed-upon delay mechanism. Mode 5 (pre-enforcement retreat through legislation) has partially failed — the legislative pre-emption didn't happen. If enforcement actually occurs after August 2, it would be the first genuine test of mandatory governance. This is B1's most significant disconfirmation opportunity in 43 sessions.

**What surprised me:** The April 28 trilogue failure coincided on the same day as the Google-Pentagon deal signing. Two major governance events in opposite directions on the same day: the EU's mandatory framework becoming enforcement-live while the US market-clearing mechanism (alignment tax) produced its clearest evidence yet. The symmetry is analytically striking.

**What I expected but didn't find:** An indication that the Commission would automatically issue a pre-emptive deferral without waiting for the Omnibus. Instead, the guidance is: the deadline is live. Organizations should comply.

**KB connections:**
- Mode 5 in Theseus governance failure taxonomy (pre-enforcement retreat through legislation) — needs update: the legislative retreat failed; enforcement is now live
- [[voluntary safety pledges cannot survive competitive pressure]] — the EU enforcement deadline becoming live is the inverse: a mandatory mechanism that *might* survive
- B1 ("not being treated as such") — first time a mandatory governance mechanism might actually enforce

**Extraction hints:**
- Claim candidate: "EU AI Act high-risk enforcement deadline became legally active on April 28, 2026 when the Omnibus trilogue failed — the first mandatory AI governance enforcement date in history without a legislative escape clause"
- Claim candidate: "Even if EU AI Act enforcement occurs, the military exclusion gap means the most consequential frontier AI deployments remain outside mandatory governance scope"
- Update Mode 5 analysis: Mode 5 is transforming from legislative pre-emption to potential enforcement (civilian only) + potential guidance fallback (if May 13 fails)

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)

PRIMARY CONNECTION: Mode 5 governance failure taxonomy (pre-enforcement retreat) — this is Mode 5's partial failure or transformation, not its confirmation

WHY ARCHIVED: April 28 trilogue failure is the governance event that makes August 2, 2026 enforcement legally active. First time in AI governance history that a mandatory enforcement deadline exists without a confirmed delay. Critical test for B1's "not being treated as such" claim.

EXTRACTION HINT: Two-phase extraction. (1) Trilogue failure as Mode 5 transformation claim. (2) Post-August 2 extraction if enforcement actually happens — that would be the real disconfirmation data. Hold B1 update until after August 2 if enforcement occurs.
