European politicians have sounded the alarm on sovereign AI after US firm Anthropic announced it was halting access to some of its top AI models following a directive from the Trump administration.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
The company said late on Friday that it had received a letter from the government ordering it to suspend access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models for foreign nationals over national security concerns.
“The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance,” Anthropic said.
The news has prompted a wave of reaction across Europe, with many politicians saying it should come as a major reality check for governments and calling for increased investment into homegrown tech.
Euronews has compiled some of the responses below.
Bruno Retailleau, former French interior minister and 2027 presidential candidate
“Washington’s decision to cut access to Anthropic’s most powerful models should serve as a wake-up call. In the race for artificial intelligence, a nation that depends on others for its technology is a nation that can be unplugged overnight,” he wrote on X.
“France has unique assets in Europe: nuclear electricity that is decarbonized and sovereign, engineers among the best in the world, but also companies like Mistral, OVHcloud, Scaleway, and ChapsVision, capable of competing with American giants. But we must put an end to naivety and decide, at last, to rearm our technological power”.
Al Carns, British MP and former minister for the armed forces
“This week the most advanced AI model on the planet got switched off by a foreign government. British researchers were studying it. British companies were testing it. British hospitals were piloting it. Not any more,” said Carns, who quit his role as armed forces minister over a defence spending row earlier this week.
“This isn’t an AI story. It’s the story of every industry we used to lead,” he continued.
Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom
“I want my #Anthropic Claude Fable 5 back!,” Wilders wrote on X.
“AI is more and more national sovereignty,” he added, while also calling for the Netherlands to accelerate the development of its own models.
Benjamin Haddad, French minister delegate for Europe
“Trump administration’s decision to bar foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic’s latest model marks an accelerator of the geopolitical battle over AI,” Haddad wrote.
“Europe cannot settle for being an open market dependent on technologies designed, funded, and controlled elsewhere,” he went on. “It must invest more, support its innovators, and equip itself with the means to master the technologies that will determine power in the 21st century”.
Tom Tugendhat, British MP and former security minister
“Disabling Fable 5 and other models for foreigners is not a misunderstanding or a mistake, it’s the inevitable result of technology shaping warfare so that sovereignty is more about code than cannons,” Tugendhat said.
He added: “With high energy costs and the emphasis on safety not opportunity Britain’s response has been to build the brake cutting ourselves off from the future and tied ourselves to the past. We cannot continue like this and remain sovereign.”
Édouard Philippe, former French prime minister and mayor of Le Havre
“By restricting access to Anthropic’s most powerful models for non-Americans, the US government is choosing to subject AI development to its logic of power,” Philippe, who served as French PM from 2017 to 2020, said.
“AI is now a critical infrastructure, as essential as electricity or the Internet. An infrastructure whose models and computing power we do not control is an infrastructure that others can unplug,” he added.
Jordan Bardella, MEP and president of France’s far-right National Rally party
“The Trump administration suspends access to Anthropic’s latest AI models for all non-American nationals: this sudden decision comes to remind us that artificial intelligence is already a major issue of national sovereignty,” he said in a post on social media.
“Nations that do not quickly develop their own model(s) will always depend more and more on the choices of other powers: France must accelerate its support for the gem Mistral AI and the entire AI ecosystem,” he added.
