EU must act on unprecedented Mythos threat
As Europe has become a digital colony, Liberals and Democrats today called for immediate and decisive action on EU level to safeguard its cybersecurity against the rapid advancement of AI systems like Mythos. The call comes during a pivotal plenary debate, initiated by the Group, highlighting the urgent need to strengthen the Union’s cyber resilience and reduce its dependence on non-European cloud infrastructure, AI technologies, and semiconductor supply chains.
We believe that AI has the potential to make a significant contribution to improving the lives of European citizens and strengthening prosperity across the EU. With AI systems increasingly underpinning critical infrastructure, from energy and financial services to public administrations, the risks of over-reliance on external technologies have never been clearer.
To address these challenges, Renew Europe is advocating for:
- Strengthening EU cyber resilience to counter emerging threats.
- Developing a comprehensive European AI cybersecurity strategy tailored to the evolving digital landscape.
- Accelerating the implementation of NIS2, the EU’s landmark cybersecurity legislation, to achieve a high and harmonised level of protection across all Member States.
- Building an EU compliant large language model (LLM) AI system.
Bart Groothuis (VVD/Netherlands), Member in the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and who negotiated NIS2, says:
“Mythos introduces a doctrine of overwhelming force in the cyber domain. Hacking at scale with the speed of light is being introduced on the world stage and chinese open-source models will follow in months. Europe urgently needs to prepare for what is coming and the European Commission needs to hand over guidance and advice to CEOs and Chief Information Security Officers around the continent.
These new models have an unprecedented capability of finding and exploiting hidden vulnerabilities in the software that runs our internet, banks, power grids and governments, so building resilience should be chefsache. Although eventually the internet might become much safer as a result of the new technology, a race against time has now begun. Europe needs to be prepared and actively involved in developing the solutions for its businesses and critical institutions.”
Christophe Grudler, (Mouvement Démocrate/France), coordinator in the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, says:
"AI is multiplying cyber threats: they are now more sophisticated, faster, and more numerous. If we do not possess adequate protection tools up to the task, Europe will be more vulnerable than ever. For the sake of citizens, businesses and public institutions, we must accelerate the development of European AI dedicated to cybersecurity and raise our general level of digital defence."
In this context, the Commission’s Tech Sovereignty package foreseen to be presented next week, will be an important opportunity to strengthen Europe’s long-term security, resilience and competitiveness.
