The Omnibus Passed Parliament: 423 to 57. The Council Is Next.
423 in favor. 57 against. 174 abstentions. On 16 June, the European Parliament approved the Digital Omnibus on AI in plenary. It is not law yet — but the distance between the parliamentary vote and law has narrowed to one step: formal adoption by the Council, expected on 29 June.
We verified the vote against the European Parliament record and updated our regulatory timeline. What we found is that the conditional we have been using in these notes — "would move," "if adopted," "envisages deferring" — is about to become present tense. But not yet.
What Parliament approved
The vote confirms the deferrals that the May provisional agreement contemplated. High-risk obligations for standalone AI systems (Annex III, Art. 6(2)) would move from 2 August 2026 to 2 December 2027. Obligations for systems embedded in harmonization products (Annex I, Art. 6(1)), from 2 August 2027 to 2 August 2028. Watermarking obligations (Art. 50(2)), to 2 December 2026. And two new prohibited practices: CSAM generation and non-consensual intimate imagery.
None of this is new — we covered it in detail when the provisional agreement was announced. What is new is that this is no longer an agreement between negotiators. It is a vote by 423 MEPs.
What remains before it becomes law
One step. Formal Council adoption, expected on 29 June. After adoption, the text is published in the Official Journal (OJEU) and enters into force — per the agreement — 20 days after publication.
Can the Council fail? Technically yes, politically it is almost unthinkable. The provisional agreement already had Council backing (the 13 May letter confirms this). The parliamentary first-reading vote with that margin (423 against 57) leaves no room for ambiguity. Our reading: the Omnibus will become law before August. But until the Council votes and the OJEU publishes, the conditional holds. Because EU law does not work on probabilities — it works on publication.
What this means for the counter above
The counter still reads days until 2 August. On that date, regulatory sandboxes (Art. 57) and Commission enforcement powers over GPAI models enter application — fines up to €15 million or 3% of turnover (Art. 99(4), verified against EUR-Lex). Art. 5 prohibitions have been in force since February 2025.
What will almost certainly not happen on 2 August is the entry into force of high-risk obligations. The Omnibus defers them. What today reads "envisages deferring" will, after Council adoption, read "defers." That grammatical shift is the difference between planning with caution and planning with certainty.
Pay Transparency: the Commissioner speaks, nobody acts
Commissioner Lahbib has confirmed that the Commission may initiate infringement proceedings (Art. 258 TFEU) against Member States that have not transposed the Pay Transparency Directive. As of today, no letters of formal notice have been published.
The map has not changed since last week: Slovakia and Italy transposed. The Netherlands, Czechia, and Denmark are targeting January 2027. France targets autumn 2026. Sweden remains suspended. And the direct-effect provisions — salary ranges in postings (Art. 5), pay history prohibition (Art. 6), gender pay information rights (Art. 7) — have been invocable since 8 June before any national court.
What we observe is a pattern familiar from the GDPR: the deadline passes, most states are not ready, the Commissioner makes statements, months pass before the first formal letters, and transposition completes gradually under pressure. That does not reduce the legal obligation on companies — it increases it, because in the absence of national law, the standard is the European directive directly.
Two more deadlines before August
On 1 July, Member States must transpose the delegated directives renewing key RoHS Annex III exemptions (Dir. 2011/65/EU) — exemptions 6(a), 6(b), 6(c), 7(a), and 7(c). Twelve days. If your product relies on any of these exemptions for lead, mercury, or cadmium in specific applications, the transposition status in your market determines whether you remain covered.
And on 12 September 2026, a Data Act obligation enters application that deserves more attention than it receives: connected products marketed from that date must be designed to allow data access by default — "access by design" (Art. 3(1) of Reg. 2023/2854). Non-compliant products may not be placed on the EU market. If you manufacture IoT devices, this affects product design, not just documentation.
What we do not know
We do not know when the Council will vote — 29 June is a forecast, not a confirmed convocation. We do not know how long OJEU publication will take after adoption. And we do not know whether the Commission will send letters of formal notice for Pay Transparency before or after summer.
What we do know is that the Omnibus has cleared the parliamentary barrier with a majority that leaves no doubt about direction. And that the AI Act calendar we have been tracking for two months is one Council vote away from being settled.