European Council

The European Council is the institutional epicentre of EU AI cope because its members are simultaneously the architects of regulation and the victims of the prisoner's dilemma it creates. Every national leader praising the AI Act in Brussels is quietly offering tax breaks and red carpet treatment to AI firms in their capitals. The 'trustworthy AI' rhetoric functions as a displacement narrative — emphasizing governance frameworks while deflecting from the structural labour market disruption their services-dependent economies face. Costa's role is particularly farcical: maintaining the fiction of coordinated European strategy while each head of government undercuts it for national advantage. The cope score would be higher, but they at least acknowledge AI exists and have produced actual (if largely reactive) regulation — which is more than most national governments manage.