The interview was conducted by Ula Rutkowska (Senior Researcher, Apolitical) and edited by Christina Obolenskaya (MSc in International History, LSE and Communications Intern, Apolitical). Marloes Pomp was named on Apolitical’s Government AI 100 2025.
AI has the potential to transform public services, but navigating the regulatory landscape remains one of the biggest challenges for governments. While Europe has led the way in AI governance, the balance between fostering innovation and enforcing regulation is becoming increasingly apparent. Can governments create policies that enable AI to flourish while maintaining oversight and public trust?
Marloes Pomp, Vice President of the European AI Forum, explains that the current regulatory focus risks stifling innovation. In this interview, she shares her perspective on the urgent need for a new approach—one that balances governance with technological progress, embraces decentralisation, and rethinks leadership in the AI space.
Europe has been a leader in AI governance, but there is often tension between fostering innovation and enforcing regulation. How can this balance be effectively achieved?
It's good to have AI regulation, but there has been a lot of attention on regulation and less on innovation. The balance isn’t there at this moment, and it’s difficult to say how we can achieve it. There are investments announced from Europe to foster innovation, but I’m not sure if that will be enough because big tech companies—like OpenAI—already have their position.
It’s not just about money – we need more than that. There is also a shared feeling of concern about the pace of growth, decreasing labour productivity and low ambition.
In the Netherlands especially, we are quite well organised and have expertise in specific sectors like food, health, and have great companies like ASML, Adyen and Cradle. We have the potential to excel AI. The tech is there. The ventures are there. But where is the capital? Where is the government to provide the right framework conditions? Where is the priority to stop talking and start building?
The biggest problem is that people have fallen asleep—it feels like we don’t feel the urgency. We’ve become used to the current normal. We seem to be taking our past performance as a given. Everything keeps moving, but without a sense of urgency, we won’t push forward. And that’s the most efficient way to drive innovation—by creating that urgency. Some countries in Europe, like Estonia and all the countries on the border with Russia, feel a sense of urgency, but in the Netherlands and in most Western European countries we don’t feel it. We need to be more bold and dare to make choices.
How is AI innovation hindered by political polarisation and the way big tech companies are involved?
It’s difficult to explain, but you feel it when you’re in countries that understand these geopolitical tensions. For example, I was in Bhutan several weeks ago – they understand these conflicts. They are caught between India and China, and know they need digital autonomy and resilience. Countries on Russia’s border—like Estonia—have that same feeling. They understand the need for digital autonomy, but in most European countries, we don’t have that urgency.
The simplest way to explain it is by using physical roads. We would never give away ownership of our roads to Apple, Google, or OpenAI—it’s physical infrastructure, and we care about it. The government owns it. But when it comes to digital infrastructure, we don’t treat it with the same urgency when it may be even more important than physical infrastructure.
I’m also not sure if government ownership of digital infrastructure is the best solution. It should be decentralised. That’s where blockchain and AI meet—because how can we trust governments? In the Netherlands, I still trust the government, but many people don’t anymore. We need new infrastructures and new governance models for democratisation. The answer lies in a combination of decentralisation and AI.
When designing regulatory frameworks for AI and blockchain, how can they remain flexible enough to adapt to new technologies without losing oversight capability?
I don’t think they will stay flexible enough, but maybe we have to accept that’s how regulatory frameworks work. We need to find solutions in other directions. In the past, regulators would create laws, enforce them, and issue fines. Now it has to be more of a collaborative process, and everyone has to respect their own role, but they also need to work more closely together to foster innovation.
With so many stakeholders involved in AI and blockchain, what do you think is the key to fostering effective collaboration between governments, industry, researchers, and startups?
New leadership. That’s a big problem— we have a lot of old men in leadership positions. They have a history of leading in a certain way that worked out for a while, but I think we need a different type of leadership now —one where people genuinely trust each other and collaborate.
It’s not just about leadership—it’s also about diversity. How open are you to different opinions? How willing are you to collaborate?
Women will play an important role in this shift. It’s not about saying women are better than men—that’s not the point. But I expect that women will be central to breaking the old barriers and the men who support this shift will also play an important role. Hopefully, we reach a new balance where gender isn’t even part of the discussion anymore.