Two weeks before the EU AI Act’s 2 August 2026 high-risk compliance deadline, the Digital Omnibus that would defer it by more than a year is still sitting outside the EU Official Journal, waiting to be printed. Everyone in Brussels agrees the deadline should slip. It hasn’t slipped yet.

The Omnibus VII package cleared the European Parliament on 16 June and secured the Council’s final green light on 29 June, according to the Council’s own press release. Under standard EU procedure, DLA Piper and Freshfields note, the law only enters into force on the third day after publication in the Official Journal, which is expected sometime in July. Until that publication happens, the original text governs.

That’s not a technicality. It’s the whole story. As Gibson Dunn puts it, “2 August 2026 remains a live compliance date,” and DLA Piper warns that if the Omnibus isn’t adopted in time, “the provisions of the original Act… will apply from that date as written.”

What the Omnibus does, once published, is substantial. Stand-alone Annex III high-risk systems get pushed to 2 December 2027. High-risk AI embedded in Annex I regulated products (medical devices, machinery, vehicles) moves to 2 August 2028. National regulatory sandboxes slip to 2 August 2027.

Not everything slips. Article 50 transparency obligations still bite on 2 August 2026. Watermarking under Art. 50(2) for systems already on the market gets a grace period cut from six months to three, landing 2 December 2026, the same day the new Article 5 safeguards against AI-generated CSAM and non-consensual intimate imagery must be in place.

The gap between political consensus and legal effect is where compliance officers live. Brussels agreed. The printer hasn’t.

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