Marietje Schaake

Marietje Schaake served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2019, representing the Netherlands. During her decade in the Parliament she became one of the most technically literate legislators working on digital policy in Europe — and one of the few who engaged with AI and platform regulation at a time when most legislators had not yet taken these questions seriously.

Since leaving the Parliament she has become the most prominent European voice on AI governance in international policy circles. She is International Policy Director at Stanford's Human-Centered AI Institute, sits on the boards of multiple AI policy organisations, and was a candidate to lead the European Commission's AI Office. Her 2022 book "The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley" argues that the concentration of AI power in a small number of US companies constitutes a structural threat to democratic governance that European and international institutions have been too slow to address.

Schaake's position is notable for its specificity: she argues not just that AI needs to be regulated, but that current regulatory approaches are insufficient because they do not address the political economy of AI development — who funds it, who profits from it, and who is accountable when it goes wrong. Her critique extends to voluntary commitments and self-regulation, which she consistently characterises as inadequate substitutes for binding rules.