The year 2026 marks a turning point in the timeline for compliance with the EU's digital regulations. The AI Act, MiCA, the Cyber Resilience Act, and the Data Act—each will introduce specific obligations with clear deadlines this year. Here is what businesses, technology providers, and policy makers need to know.

A government memorandum, released on March 12, 2026, proposes the nomination of national authorities responsible for enforcing Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on artificial intelligence, as well as the establishment of a single national contact point. The document is based on the obligation of Member States to designate at least one notifying authority and at least one market surveillance authority, obligations for which the deadline expired on August 2, 2025.

 

 In Romanian labor law, compliance no longer means just having internal policies in writing. Court practice and regulatory inspections increasingly show that employers must demonstrate effective enforcement of internal rules and genuine respect for employee rights.

A company requests a loan. The response comes in seconds: denied. No meeting, no discussion, no explanation beyond a standard email. The decision was made by an algorithm, and the applicant has no idea what determined the outcome or how they could challenge it. This is not a hypothetical scenario. It happens every day in the European financial sector, and the real problem is not that algorithms make decisions, but that those affected can do almost nothing about it.

As a effect of the entry of Regulation (EU) No. 40/2025 on packaging and packaging-related waste ("the Regulation") becoming effective, new obligations will be imposed on economic operators regarding the use of packaging, in particular single-use packaging.